Begin Again
by katherine-with-a-k
Summary: In this story Anne becomes a famous writer and ends up marrying Royal Gardner. Their nineteen year old daughter, Dido, is coming home after serving in the Red Cross during WW1, and she's bringing a cocky young pilot named Will Blythe with her. After all these years Anne and Gilbert are suddenly thrust together. Can they find a way to begin again?
1. Chapter 1

**What if Phil never wrote her letter urging Gilbert to try again?**

 **In this story Anne and Gilbert do not reunite after his illness. Instead she becomes a successful writer and reconnects with Royal Gardner who begs her to reconsider his proposal.**

 **They have one daughter, Dido, who is as impulsive and romantic as her mother used to be. She was in France when war broke out and served as a driver in the Red Cross.**

 **After two years abroad she is about to come home with a handsome young pilot... who also happens to be Gilbert Blythe's son.**

 **BEGIN AGAIN**

 ** _April, 1919  
_**

'Anne- you're not dressed!'

'The train isn't due till two-' she says, huffing away a strand of red hair.

She stands over her typewriter trying to feed the ribbon into where it has escaped. How does anyone manage this without turning every finger black? Her nose begins to itch and she wriggles it, instead of risking what would no doubt leave an inky moustache. Not that Dido would mind but Royal certainly would.

His fingers make a tapping sound on the door frame. Forgetting herself Anne scratches her upperlip.

'Is that to match your suit?' Royal says, tossing Anne his starched white handkerchief.

He looks so odd without it unfurling from his top pocket his appearance almost unnerves her.

'I take it you don't approve of the colour I'm wearing,' Anne replies, dabbing her face. 'We're not going to the theatre, Roy, we're going to the station-'

'To collect our only daughter, whom we haven't seen for _two_ years.'

'Exactly. I doubt she'll care what I'm wearing- besides I thought you liked this?' she says, shrugging her shoulders in her charcoal coloured jacket.

'I do like it... for funerals-'

Anne frowns and slumps into her chair. Royal considers her for a moment and then ventures into her study, crossing the Persian rug as though the garden of lilies concealed hot coals. He plucks at the knees of his trousers and crouches down beside her.

'Forgive me, duck, we've had more than our share of those.'

He reaches for Anne's hand and she remembers how she clutched it as they listened to the eulogy for Phil's son and Jane's son; for Lewis's wife and Jen's husband.

The waxy ends of her husband's moustache press into the back of her hand as he brings it to his lips.

'The war is _won,_ our daughter is coming _home_ ,' he reminds her, wondering why he should have to. 'She's spent two years in some khaki rag, don't you think she'd want to see her Mamma in something a little more...' Royal drops her hand to make a flourishing gesture, ' _chic?'_

He watches his wife nod mutely and twits her nose.

'You missed a bit.'

Anne feels she is missing more than that. Instead she smiles.

'You're right, Roy of course, you're right. I haven't given this moment the attention it deserves... I've been so caught up with the draft -the publishers- I just wanted it _done_ before our girl came home. I don't want to waste one moment, we have so much to relearn about each other... This young man she's engaged herself to, for one-'

Royal stands and catches his reflection in the oval mirror above the fireplace. He approaches it, purposefully, his long-lashed eyes lighting upon the photographs Anne keeps in here. They are what he calls 'her lot'; the Avonlea dears, the Patty's Place clique, her writers, musicians and poets. His gaze rests on the one image that has always rankled, though he knows it is unreasonable. It is Anne in her cap and gown graduating from Redmond with a bouquet of lily-of-the-valley in her hands. He picks it up, puts it down, and smooths his slicked back hair.

'She is not engaged,' he tells his reflection. 'This 'whoever-he-is' merely asked for her hand. She hasn't accepted him-'

'You mean _you_ haven't accepted him-'

Royal turns to find his wife using his handkerchief to wipe the typewriter keys. He slams his hand upon the edge of mantelpiece.

'No _,_ I haven't accepted him! Who is he to us? Some _nobody_ -'

'He's hardly that, Roy, he's a Captain and a DC-'

'You sound as though you _want_ Dido to attach herself to him-'

Anne can feel Royal's eyes on the back of her head and resolutely works the dark sludge from the typewriter keys.

'I don't have an opinion one way or another, and I don't see how I can be expected to have one when we haven't even _met_ the boy-'

'Your indifference is baffling. One would think you were more worried about your precious books than your own daughter -I don't understand you-'

Anne flings the handkerchief to the floor and glares at her husband, her grey eyes ringed with green.

'And I don't understand how you can be such a snob _._ It wasn't that long ago when I was considered a nobody.' _  
_

Royal picks up his handkerchief and inspects it carefully.

'A low blow, Anne,' he murmurs, examining the stains. 'His standing has nothing to do with yours.'

He calmly folds the cloth and places it on Anne's desk. No doubt she would prefer him to throw it into the fire; what was one silk hankerchief to the literary sensation, A. Shirley-Gardner? She takes her lifestyle too much for granted. Servants, parties, endless jaunts abroad... these things weren't simply summoned from the air like her fairy stories.

He clears his throat, as he always does when he is about to make an important point.

'But as you mention your past, then consider, my dear little stray; had your parents lived, who would they would have wanted you to marry? Who did your people in Avonlea _want_ you to marry-'

Anne eyes dart to the mantelpiece, the lilies. She leaves her desk and walks to the door.

'We'll continue this conversation later,' she says, coolly. 'I still have to change.'

Royal follows her out of the room, peering up the stairs in case the staff should hear them.

'There is nothing to discuss. I don't care who he is or what power he thinks he has over our daughter, he is not welcome at Alderley. He is not to be invited, he is not to be encouraged. We shall simply collect our daughter from the train, tip our hats, and keep walking. Do you understand?'

'Roy,' Anne exclaims, clutching his arm, 'she's in _love_. Don't you remember how that felt _?_ I can't believe that you'd do to Dido what your mother tried to do to us-'

'Perhaps I should have heeded her advice.'

Anne jerks away from him as though he burned her, and swipes at sudden tears. A black smudge appears under her eye. Seeing this Royal softens. He brings his thumb to his wife's face.

'You _know_ you have a talent for making me say things I don't mean. It should be obvious how much I adore you -and Dido. I'm not half as surprised as you think I am that she has done something so foolhardy. No doubt she went through hell in France, it's natural she might mistake her feelings under the circumstances. Any woman would. Which, if you'll remember is _another_ reason why I disliked the idea of her serving in the Ambulance Corps. I gave into her whim against my better judgment and now...' Royal says, gesturing for his wife to continue.

'We must pay for our folly as for our crime,' she recites, dully.

'Exactly.' He wets the tip of his finger to erase the ink from Anne's skin. 'Do you think I want to upset our daughter the moment she steps off the train? Of course I don't. But in the end she'll see her Papa was right.'

He slides his hand down Anne's throat and fingers the amber beads that circle it. His eyes darken as he presses her against the emerald wallpaper in the hall. Her hair forms a halo round her face, which is still as smooth and glowing as it was when he married her the day she turned thirty-three. She wears no make up, excepting a ruby stain on her lips that makes her teeth seem even whiter.

'To think we've been married these twenty years and I still haven't managed to tame you.'

Anne sees a rare excitement in her husband's blue eyes. He is still quite as handsome as he ever was, if blurred round the edges. His black hair is thinning, his chin no longer strong nor his waist so trim. None of this prevents Anne from wishing he would look at her the way he is looking at her now. It's been months since he has given her so much as a kiss, years since he's gone to her room. Yet all she can think of is getting free of him.

'Roy, Morrison could walk by at any moment and I still have to change-'

'Of course,' he mutters, letting her pass to the staircase. 'You'll have to do without Harriet, I'm afraid. She's hanging Dido's new drapes.'

'Oh Royal...' Anne sighs, looking down at him. 'It's such an extravagance when so many people are going without, I thought we had decided to keep the old ones. There'll be nothing left for our girl to return home _to_ ,' she says, referring to four poster bed and furnishings that have been purchased for Dido's room.

'Is it a crime to want to make her happy?' Royal replies, sending his wife a brilliant smile.

Anne gives him a small wave and turns away, knowing they are about to break their daughter's heart.

 **...**

 ***The Red Cross provided nurse aids, ambulance drivers and catering services during the first world war.**

 ***DC is a medal for Distinguished Conduct in battle**

 **Thank you so much for reading my first ever AU. I've always wondered how Call Me Carrots manages to write so many stories simultaneously, and then I accidentally wrote this last night. I am still working on The Last of the Windy Willows Love Letters, but after being inspired by the war story, The Piper, the after the war story, Not As We Were, and especially, The Enamel Heart, I couldn't stop myself imagining this.**

 **I hope you don't think I have stomped all over your story, BrightRiver, it is such a brilliant idea I wanted to try and write my own.**

 **Katherine with a K**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Chapter two_**

If it is spring Bolingbroke doesn't know it. The sun shines white overhead, a thick mist blankets the streets, and the Gardner's driver pulls to the side of the road to ignite the lamps on the Daimler straight six. Anne studies the glass of the rear window and draws a line through the condensation. She peers into the thin, clear gap and makes out a leafless oak, a boy on a bicycle in a bright yellow cap, a woman in a magenta sari wheeling a perambulator. Strange that so much life can fit in so small a space.

She brings her mouth to the cold glass and fogs it up once more.

'What are you sighing about?' Royal asks her, patting down dove grey silk as he searches for his watch. 'Damn this traffic, we're going to be late!'

Anne turns and reaches into the pocket of his pinned striped jacket, retrieving a gold time piece.

'You're wearing your pockletless waistcoat, remember?' she says, handing it to him.

It had been the tailor's idea because Royal wanted something that would give him a slimmer silhouette. It is a flattering cut but, much like her husband, not very practical.

The driver returns, breathing clouds into the car, and feels Mrs Gardner's gloved hand on his shoulder.

'Take Montrose Ave, Lester, it's a little out of the way but we should at least have a clear run.'

Royal eyes his wife and wonders, not for the first time, how Anne manages to have a mind filled with fancy _and_ good sense. She is quite the enigma. He often describes her as such to his chums at the club; it reflects well on his character that he can manage such a woman. For the last few weeks, however, she has embodied that word a little too well. The war ending and Dido returning added much needed spark to their conversation. Wintry nights were fired up with debates over which recital they would take their daughter to, or what she would study at Redmond. It had all been pleasantly easy until Dido's latest letter. Since then Anne has become unreadable. He feels he cannot honestly say if she is pleased by the news or appalled.

'William Blythe?' said Royal, thoughtfully, passing the letter to his wife. He sat back in his dining chair and tried to place the name. 'Do we know any Blythes?'

Anne bent her head over the pale blue page smothered in their daughter's loopy writing.

'When you say _we_ , Roy, do you mean the Gardner 'we' or the Bolingbroke 'we'?'

'Both, I would have thought,' he answered. 'If this chap doesn't run in our circle there's not much future for the two of them, surely-' His voice trailed off and he observed his wife, who appeared to be reading the same sentence over and over. 'We _did_ know some Blythes, didn't we, duck?'

'Blythe is a common enough name,' Anne said, shortly. 'Would you mind very much if I took this to my study?'

She tucked the pages into the envelope.

'Doesn't look like I have much say in the matter -or _any_ matter come to that,' he huffed, helping himself to another currant bun. 'But then what have I always said? That daughter of ours takes wholly after _you_.'

'Yes, you do say that,' Anne replied, and left the room.

She had barely closed the heavy mahogany door behind her before she fell to the floor. The lilies on her rug blurred and her hands became wet as she rocked back and forth on her knees. _Dido home_. _Dido in love_. _Captain William Blythe_. The words crowded her head, crammed in her mouth, and a silent cry, so sharp it felt she was being cut open emerged from her throat. She thought she would be sick. It wasn't until the butler knocked and asked if she preferred to take tea in the study that Anne realised an hour must have passed. She became aware of her aching wrists, how cold the room was, and moving to the window instructed Morrison to remake the fire and bring her a hot toddy.

'And leave the whiskey here,' she said, staring hard at the view of the garden.

The shrubbery lay under inches of snow so white it hurt to look at it. So white that when Morrison returned with her drink she could scarcely make out his face.

A month has passed since that morning yet the view is almost the same. The mist is that thick Anne half wishes Lester will tell them they will have to abandon the journey. Once they cross the bridge to the Old City the fog begins to lift and the Gardners find themselves on platform twelve just as the porters are opening the carriage doors. She links arms with her husband and wades through soldiers and nurses, leaping children and wives crying out, craning her head above the swarm. They hear her first, calling for them both in a low, smoky voice like her Aunt's.

'Mamma! Papa! I'm here- I'm here!'

And she is, Diana Dorothy Gardner, standing on a battered trunk and waving a rose coloured hat. Royal releases his wife and shoulders his way to her side, swinging his daughter in his arms so that her worn, black boot knocks a soldier's cap from his head. Before she can apologise she finds herself carried along the platform to where the crowds have thinned.

Anne loses sight of them for a moment, overwhelmed by the sense she is making her way through a forest at night. She holds her arms out in front of her and catches dream-like glimpses of Dido waving madly and kissing her father and slipping what looks like an outsized foxglove over her dark, glossy hair. Anne wishes he hadn't. When she beholds her daughter at last she has an powerful urge to strip her of everything -her bulky, loose coat, her close-fitting hat- anything that might get in the way of her touching and seeing and smelling her child.

'Mamma... oh Mamma, I've _missed_ you-'

'It's over now, love... It's over, it's over, it's over, it's over, it's over...'

Dido closes her eyes and lets the scent of lily of the valley and two much missed arms envelope her once more. Mamma is worryingly thin. No doubt her mother will say the same of her. After France -Dido always divides her life into Before and After now- she feels as supple as a whip of willow. Whereas Mamma is brittle as bone china. Reluctantly, she loosens her hold.

'Alright, old thing?'

Anne nods, cupping her daughter's face in her hands. She has her father's thick lashes and inky hair, her mother's dark grey eyes and her pointed little chin... and there- on her nose- a smattering of-

'Tash!'

A husky voice calls from behind Anne's shoulder. She watches mutely as a scarred, brown hand intrudes between them and grabs her daughter's arm.

'Tash, I couldn't find you- this place is worse than Auchon after Fatigues-'

'It's madness, isn't it?' Dido says, 'Introductions will be a bit of a chore in here. What say we meet up at- Papa, is Pacey's still in existence?'

'I should say so,' Royal says, smoothly, 'Kingsport would riot if that place shut down-'

'Ah, Roy-' Anne says, her hand waving from behind a broad khaki clad back, 'I thought we were heading straight-'

She doesn't finish her sentence because the soldier is bending in close to her daughter's forehead and dropping a kiss on her pink felt hat.

'You go with your folks, I'll meet you there,' he mutters, then lifts his hand to his cap and gives it a tug. 'Mr Gardner. Mrs Gardner,' he says, before turning on his heel.

Anne does not see his face for more than a second and she knows.

'Are you _truly_ alright, Mamma?'

'I'm fine, darling -it's this crowd-'

'I can't make out a word you're saying. Let's get out of here, oh, I hope we can find a cab!' says Dido, rocking up on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of the man who is striding away.

'We can do _far_ better than that!' Royal declares.

He is almost as excited about showing off his auto as he is about seeing Dido again. She whistles for what Royal vows to himself will be the last time and he offers both ladies an arm. They weave in and out of a Friday throng, around rucksacks, baskets, and dropped umbrellas, and have almost reached the main entrance when their daughter brings them to a halt.

'Good gravy! My suitcase, I've left my suitcase-' She looks up at her father, who immediately turns to his wife.

'Anne, I wouldn't have the _faintest_ where one would find a porter here, I always leave that to Lester.'

'Papa, you are hopeless!' Dido laughs. 'We left our bags by a stand selling roasted nuts.'

Royal stiffens noticeably at the mention of the word 'we' and Anne instantly envisages the tense conversation about to be had in the back of the Daimler. It's more than likely that he means to bundle Dido into the backseat and order Lester to drive them back to Bolingbroke. This might be avoided if she could convince them to walk to Pacey's, it's only half a mile away; her husband would never risk a scene in public.

'I could hunt it out, follow you in a cab -to Pacey's,' Anne says, tentatively.

She doesn't expect him to agree, and struggles to hide her surprise when Royal nods at her gratefully and whisks their daughter away.

Anne feels guilty for suspecting him. Then foolish. As the smell of salted nuts gets stronger she realises she forgot to ask Dido what her bag looks like. Hoping the nut seller might be of some help she lines up behind a tall gentleman and waits. The aroma is wonderfully tempting. Her stomach begins to protest at being given nothing but tea and toast for days and she feels about for her coin purse.

The girl at the nut stand gives her a blank stare when she asks about Dido's suitcase, and a brown paper bag filled with hazelnuts. Anne tears it open, popping a hot, salted kernels into her mouth, and bumps into the chest of the man behind her.

'Oh, I'm sorry-' she mumbles, her tongue almost scorched, and darts to the luggage piled between two iron pillars.

There is nothing for it, she is going to have to examine the tags on every one. She stuffs the bag of nuts into her coat and falls to her knees, when a hand comes into view, holding a smart leather case.

'Were you looking for this, Mrs Gardner?'

Anne straightens slowly and turns to face the man she had collided with. He still has the same coltish lilt in his voice, the same broad shoulders filling out a navy wool coat. Under his hat she detects silvery wings of close cropped hair. And his eyes, those same hazel eyes stare at her, bemusedly.

The nut meat sticks to the roof of her mouth, she knows she should thank him but she can't. The years melt from her like mist in the sun. She is forty-three. She is thirty-three. She is twenty-three, and standing on the Bright River platform watching the train carry him away for what she thought would be forever.

Without knowing why, with no way of explaining, she says to him now what she called to him then.

'No.'

 **...**

 *** Auchonvilliers is a village in the Somme. Fatigue duty is the work soldiers do when they are not on the front line, mostly maintenance and digging. After Fatigues they were free to spend the evening as they wished.**

 **Thank you so much for all your reviews, I never expected an AU to be all that popular, I just wanted to play around with an idea that grew not from L.M.M. but from the other amazing writers on this site.**

 **You're right Vicky, this does feel like a radio play. I think because I am writing this in the present tense, (good spotting Alinya) it makes it seem far more exciting, even if the action is buying a bag of nuts.  
**

 **I was thrilled with all of your questions, because that means you want to turn the page (or at least read the next post) so I feel I am doing something right. As for the DC, I'm sorry for not asterisking that. It is a medal for Distinguished Conduct, the same medal Walter Blythe received.**

 **Especial high fives to PelirrojaBiu as to Dido's name. Girl, you are good!**

 **Katherine**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Chapter three_**

The word 'no' never bodes well when it comes from Anne. Had Gilbert been twenty three he would certainly have winced. But he is more than twice that age and has the salt and pepper hair to prove it. And creases at the corners of his eyes, and scores in his cheeks that had once been dimples. He likes to think he has grown into himself. Ten years ago he still had a boyish look he suspects may have hampered his career. No doubt it would have been easier if he'd remained in Nova Scotia; the Cooper Prize carries prestige in Kingsport, and whenever he is introduced here the mention of his win never fails to be followed by, 'which wasn't awarded again for more than a decade.'

Today when he takes the stage he is no longer staring out at grey faced nay-sayers, but at eager men and women who accost him in hallways to ask about advances in blood storage, or the citrate method of anticoagulation. These discussions have become the highlights of his day, and the bane of his assistant who has a schedule to keep him on. Halifax, Montreal, Rochester, then finally home to Boston. He lives by the Charles River because he needs to be close to the water. It's a small concession to the life he once had growing up on the Island, though not enough to make up for the fact that Boston University is a Methodist institution; a fact Gilbert's aunt never failed to bring up whenever they went home for Christmas.

In moments of rare sentiment he'll say there's no home to go back to now -usually after picking up a faded photograph from his desk. This invariably goads his son into pointing out that they've _never_ had a home to go back to, before he feints to the left, pulls his father into a headlock and the picture of the Blythe farm from out of his hand.

Will liked Avonlea enough to look with pride upon the scars he collected from winters there. He even considered attending Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown for all of five minutes, before his father reminded him he was never actually a student of that school, and neither was his mother.

'I was sorry to hear of her passing,' Anne says.

She stops in the middle of the footpath and squeezes Gilbert's arm.

'Katherine and I were- well, chums is not exactly the word-'

'Kindred spirits is how she described it,' says Gilbert, lightly.

He tucks Anne's hand around his elbow once more and presses further up the street. They have demolished the bag of nuts and sent a cab with the children's luggage onto Pacey's without them. It was Anne's idea. She tells herself that Royal is bound to hold fire until she appears, and the longer she delays her arrival the more chance Captain Blythe has of changing her husband's mind.

'Let me guess,' Anne says, stepping around a shard of broken glass, 'there was a discernable hint of sarcasm in Katherine's voice when she said that.'

'Wouldn't like to say,' Gilbert responds, with a conspiratorial look.

He holds it a second too long and Anne begins to fuss with the veil on her hat. Though wads of cloud loom over them Gilbert finds himself asking if the sun is bothering her.

'Yes -no... Gil, I don't want to pry-' Anne says quickly, 'and I hope you don't mind my saying this -but Katherine Brooke was the last woman I ever imagined you marrying. I don't mean to be rude, it's only that I'm not sure when I will see you next, and it's hardly the sort of thing one can put in a letter.'

'Oh, I don't know... if memory serves we used to share some heated exchanges-'

'Gossipy things about Redmond and home-'

It stings him to hear her describe their letters that way, but it's hardly her fault that she sees the world so differently. None of this is her fault, or his. Nor Will's or Dido's. This is just another random event, without meaning or explanation. The way some people succumb to influenza and some do not. The way great feats of engineering can disintegrate instantly.

If Katherine had been one minute later, or earlier. Instead she fell with thirty-three others who had been working on the Quebec Bridge; and is buried under a steel cross in her beloved Kahnawake.

The silence becomes a space between them, one that her old self would have encouraged. Now Anne is filled with urgency because every step they take is one they can never have back.

'Come,' she says, 'we have ten short minutes to catch up on thirty years. Not that we won't have plenty to talk about at Pacey's- but that is bound to be a very different conversation-'

She is gazing at him the way she did when he saw her at the station. He wishes she wouldn't, because he has just discovered he hasn't lost the knack of seeing things in her eyes that aren't there. How is it possible for her to appear so unchanged? Naturally, her look has evolved from the simple style she used to favour. Her coat is in the latest mode, and drapes around her like a cocoon, and her hat is in a bold geometrical shape, with stiff dyed feathers and a spotted net. But underneath that same spirit glows. She works on him like sunlight, he can't help but open up.

'Ten minutes, you say?'

'Probably closer to eight now.'

'Lets go the long way then, by the rotunda. That will give us... a good five minutes each. I'll go first as you are so curious, but-' he clutches her arm and squeezes it, ' _no_ interrupting. After that, it's your turn-'

'Me? There's nothing to tell-' His face says it all and she laughs. 'Oh, alright. But _you_ first. Now -go!'

'Right, ah,' he pauses, and bites his lip as he used to when he muddling out a math problem. 'Shall I start with Katherine first, or before that?'

It is Anne's turn to give him a look.

'Before it is. So, when did we last see each other...'

He knows the answer to that and almost believes she does, too. Instead of waiting for a reply he takes a breath and begins. After the fever, Redmond. Then a relapse. His supervisor recommends a specialist in Pennsylvania. A six week visit becomes a year. Then back to Redmond. Graduation. Three job offers; one from Halifax, one from Philadelphia, and one from Glen St Mary-

'You mean you might have returned to the Island?' Anne asks him.

'I did return -for a short time. Stop interrupting. So then it was back to Philly, then Boston, then a brief stint in Montreal. That's where I first met Katherine. She was Doctor Landsteiner's secretary back then, at St Mark's. You might have heard of him?'

Anne has heard of him. More than that, she knows he specialises in haematology. She also knows that Gilbert has forgotten to mention the six months he spent in Vancouver. But she doesn't say any of this, instead she shakes her head.

'No? He received a Nobel Prize for the immunological response to incompatible blood types?'

'Let me guess,' Anne says, 'you're an A?'

'Nope, just a plain old O, Mrs Gardner. You?'

'I thought we weren't doing questions.'

'True, so what year am I up to... 1897. That was a big year for young Doctor Blythe, finally finished my doctorate and Katherine and I were married. Will was born in England. After that it was back to Montreal -more for Kat's sake than for mine. She was studying anthropology, indigenous languages, Iroquoian especially... She didn't really take to motherhood-'

'It's harder than it looks.'

Gilbert turns to her and smiles. One of his generous, open smiles that are as much a part of him has his hazel eyes and curly hair.

'Thank you, Anne. Most people say how sorry they are.'

It's hearing him say her name that does it. That and the thought of all the children she was so sure would be his. Dozens of brown limbed brats spitting spruce chews at unsuspecting Pyes, rambling over the Blythe homestead, and teasing the life out of the latest Avonlea school master.

She lets go his arm and races ahead to the rotunda, fighting hard against the ache behind her eyes. Cry, now? How sentimental would that look -not to say unhinged.

Gilbert seems to know, in any case he takes his time walking over to her. His unbuttoned coat flies behind him accentuating muscular thighs and slim hips. She remembers hearing that he was once on the rowing team, but can't think of a way to can ask him without it becoming obvious she has been following his astonishing career from the beginning. Before Medical school; before the scholarship; before the Medal, to the days when his name topped hers in their one roomed schoolhouse. Anne knows it all, the way she knows her own hand or her child's face. She thinks of her daughter and brims with gladness that Dido will know Gilbert, too.

He ascends the stairs of the rotunda and grips hard at the railings, rocking back and forth while he takes in the view. This time of year offers little more than some pruned back roses and an empty fountain.

'I wish it would rain,' he says, so softly she is not sure she is supposed to have heard him.

He turns and catches Anne looking at him. She is thinking of the storm that passed the night she was told that Gilbert was dying. Then her memories fly further, to the hurricane that struck when she was teaching in Avonlea. Every window blew out of Green Gables and there was no glass to be had to replace them.

'Remember when-' she begins.

'Uh-uh,' says Gilbert. 'I'm not spending our last five minutes playing _do you remember_.'

He offers his arm and leads her down the stairs to a path that follows the river.

'Time for you to tell me everything I don't know.'

'That would be a short conversation,' she says, elbowing him.

'Alright then. Tell me how it is that you and- Mr Gardner decided on a ten year engagement?'

'Ten years?' Anne laughs. 'We were only engaged for three days. I know Island gossip can be unreliable, but surely even Fred knew that.'

They walk on a few steps then Gilbert stops, releasing Anne's arm from his own. He pulls his fedora from his head and begins to pinch at the teardrop crown. Anne waits for him to look at her, but all his attention has gone to his hat.

'I didn't know you didn't know,' she says, feebly.

She longs to add, what about you? You were supposed to marry Christine.

Gilbert rubs his mouth as she speaks. His eyes flick over her, then back to the rotunda as though he thinks he may have left something behind.

'My mistake,' he mutters, and tilts his hat low over his brow. 'We should hurry, Mrs Gardner, I'm sure our children will be wondering where we are.'

 **...**

 *** the Quebec bridge collapsed twice, I am referring to the first collapse in 1907**

 *** Kahnawake is Mohawk territory**

 *** Dr Landsteiner is Austrian but I moved him to Montreal**

 **Thank you again for your reviews, I am seriously overwhelmed. I wrote this on a whim, more for myself than anything else.  
**

 **Firstly, thanks to BrightRiver for being so chill about me taking her idea and running with it. Please read The Enamel Heart to see why I find it so inspiring.**

 **Secondly, to clarify Anne and Roy live in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia, which is about twenty miles from Kingsport. Their house is called Alderley which also features in my Diary stories, but that's just because I like the name not because I am consciously referencing it.**

 **Thirdly, props to Guest for 'fictional depression' (I get you completely, and was utterly messed up after writing the final chapter of Redmond Diaries -the second year) and to Alinya for 'cosmic sympathy' that was lovely.**

 **Fourthly, sorry to DianaStorm09, I just realised haven't read your latest Sherlock fic yet :o/**

 **To Erika -sorry not sorry, consider it revenge for Gale and Madge in No More Owed**

 **To PelirrojaBiu -23 was just a bit of poetic license, if I am a year out then my bad. As for 'she knows' I deleted at least fifty words from that sentence.  
**

 **To others with questions I haven't been able to read your reviews in full because they haven't come up on this site yet, only in truncated form on my email. I'll have to reply to you later.**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Chapter four_**

Will slumps onto the stool next to his father and drops his cap on the mahogany bar.

'Buy a soldier a drink?' he says, and puts in an order for a Boston sour.

'It's the same as a whiskey sour,' Gilbert explains to the bar man, opening his pocketbook and laying a note under his empty glass. 'Are you allowed to drink in uniform, Captain Blythe?'

He plucks the cherry from Will's glass and pops it into his mouth. The jewel bright fruit bursts on his tongue and reminds him of Ruby Gillis.

'-Dads, you're supposed to laugh now,' Will is saying, _'_ Dads -hello, are you there?'

Gilbert lays the memory away and gives his son a withering look.

'I've been here for nearly two hours.'

'Sorry old man, those Gardners sure can talk. You should have been there-' says Will, nudging Gilbert's shoulder.

His father looks tired and glum. Will had hoped they might grab a cheap meal and take in a band at a club. Since the Armistice last November every night begs to be celebrated, especially in a university town like Kingsport. He used to dread coming here with his father on conferences. There was nothing to do but run up and down the Redmond clock tower and seek out forbidden books in the library. Not enough to recommend the place if you were twelve. But if you were a man of twenty-two, freshly returned from an eighteen month stint in the Royal Flying Corps and up to your eyebrows in love with the belle of Bolingbroke, perhaps Kingsport wasn't a bad old joint after all.

Her parents, however, they will take some careful thought. He takes his drink, pours a slug in the empty glass and slides it to his father.

'Is it your shout?' Gilbert asks, giving him a grin.

Will cradles his face in his hand and swirls his drink with his finger.

'Tash's folks are really something-'

'Why do you call her that?'

'Tash?' Will says, as though his father has just asked him why he calls the grass green. He wiggles his wet fingertip over his nose. 'For those, of course. Tache de Rousseur-'

'You mean _freckles_? You're telling me you call Miss Gardner 'freckles' -to her face -and your head is still in one piece?'

'Well... yeah,' Will answers. 'We all had nicknames over there. I was Fletcher-'

'As in arrows, because you fly?'

'You're too quick for my squad, it wasn't anything half so clever. William Blythe sounds like William Bligh-' Will says, and waits for his father to make the connection.

'Bligh of the Bounty mutiny, the one led by Fletcher Christian?'

'Got it in one,' says Will, raising the dregs of his drink in a toast.

'Why not just call you Bligh?' his father says, shaking his head.

'I dunno -it's not something you can apply logic to, Dads. Though I had to laugh when I met Mrs Gardner-'

'Oh yes, and why's that?' Gilbert asks him. He leans in close in order to hear him above the piano.

Will stares at him, his gold eyes wide with disbelief that such a celebrated intellect has asked another obvious question.

'Tache de Rousseur, it translates into something like 'a little pocket of red'. And Tash -I mean Dido, is the daughter of a redhead. A chip off the old block, so to speak.'

Gilbert laughs at how little his son understands women. Or at least how little he understands Anne. No one could have called her Freckles more than once and lived to tell the tale. Mother and daughter don't sound alike at all. The thought cheers him; he reaches into his pocketbook and lays another note on the bar.

'Come on, Mr Christian, let me reacquaint you with this old town.'

The streets are crammed with soldiers and nurses, the air with songs of Tipperary, and the footpath with the limbs of those who have made their bed in the gutter. They've been to Changs for noodles, The Star and Garter for beer, The Algonquin for cocktails, and two different hotels, both of which Gilbert swears is the one they were staying at. It's not until they stop at a pie-cart that he remembers the name of the road their hotel is on.

'I know a secret! A se- cret!' Will slurs, then halts as though he can no longer speak and walk at the same time.

Gilbert throws his arm around Will's shoulder and pulls him along. There is nothing to distinguish them from all the others who stagger by, except they aren't mates from the same battalion but father and son. If this is unusual it's also understandable. Will has survived four missions without being captured, shot down or burned to death in his beloved Sopwith Camel. Gilbert, who has already buried his wife, spent the best part of two years expecting to bury his son. What sets them apart from other men is that they never needed a war to bring them together. They were allies from the start.

It was Gilbert who soothed and sang to Will while Katherine would lie in her bed. On a bad day she would weep or rage. On a good day she would sleep. Help was hired but never lasted long. Katherine would be too hard on them or the nannies would be too hard on Will, and Gilbert discovered he preferred a chaotic home to those buttoned up types who cared more about table manners than climbing trees. With his encouragement Katherine began to take an interest in anthropology. A colleague of Gilbert's made a hobby of it and held meetings every Saturday at his North London residence. Sundays became low days. Gilbert found her one afternoon running the paring knife over her arm. He handed in his resignation and booked a berth for home.

Their apartment in Montreal was crammed with strange finds and thrummed with songs from the gramophone. They ate on the floor because Katherine took the kitchen table for her desk, which was forever piled high with books and cups.

Will was sucking whipped cream from the ends of five birthday candles when he announced with quiet certainty, 'You're _happy_ now, aren't you, Kat?'

'So very happy, little pale face,' his mother assured him, and pushed the sofa against the wall to teach him the steps to the Iroquois Apple dance.

Will can still remember how to do it. He launches himself through the door of their hotel room and makes a circular shuffle between the two beds, before stopping to kick off his boots.

'Look, dads, sockasins!' he says, gleefully.

Gilbert pulls the kkaki jacket from his son and pushes him onto the bed. Half an hour later he is lying awake thinking about finding a glass of water when Will says, dozily,

'You never asked me 'bout my secret. It's a good one, Dads, 'bout Mrs Gardner. You won't believe it-'

'Go to sleep.'

Will can make out his father's shoulders against the dim light filtering through the curtains. Beyond them he can hear two men scuffling in the street below. He's used to that. What he never gets used to are the dreams. The one where he takes a bullet to his fuel tank and knows he must jump to his death or be burned alive.

There are plenty of scars on his body already. His father examined a couple of them, Dido has seen them all. And will no doubt cause some more. His mates kept telling him he was playing with fire and Will could only agree, because pilots like him were lucky to last six weeks, and women like Dido Gardner marry men like Major Middleton-Kirk. Instead he resolved to savour each bliss for as long as she would let him. On the steamer to Kingsport, he kept expecting her to tell him they 'needed to talk'. And when he sat at that swanky tea house he told himself she'd never come. She would realise what a fool she'd been, go home to her mansion in Bolingbroke and host parties for significant men.

Mr Gardner is a significant man. Will sized him up in the time it took to tip his cap. Mrs Gardner he is not so sure of. She certainly looked the part with her daft hat, and didn't half prattle on sometimes. But then there was that moment, the one that lasted mere seconds and felt like an hour, when she stared at him with her huge grey eyes. His skin prickled and a blush crept over his neck. He had the strangest sensation she could see inside him, but instead of finding him wanting, he could hear her say, You, too?

The Tea House had closed by then. A waitress was leaning on her broom, the hat-check boy lit a cigarette, and Dido sent him a wink from the other side of the table and whispered in her mother's ear.

'Isn't he a dish?'

'Watch out, Blythe,' said Royal, 'you'll end up in one of her Tree Folk books. Did you know you're sitting with Canada's very own Beatrix Potter?'

'What sort of tree does he look like, Mamma?'

'An apple tree,' Anne said, decidedly.

When he heard this Will thought of his mother.

'What about Kat, Mrs Gardner, what sort of tree was she, do you think?'

This time her response didn't come so quickly. She appeared to be lost in some memory; one that took the smile from her mouth, though not from her eyes.

'Holly,' Anne murmured, 'your mother was Holly.'

Will smiled.

'So you did know her.'

'Not so well as I should have, Captain Blythe.'

He tucked up his legs as the waitress pushed her broom under his feet.

'Everyone says that. You probably don't know this, Mrs Gardner, but my mother credited you with changing her life-'

Anne took a deep gulp of cold tea, expecting the young man opposite to announce that if she hadn't refused Gilbert Blythe Katherine could never have married him.

'It was you who encouraged Kat to give up teaching and take a secretarial course at Redmond, wasn't it?' Will asked her.

He was answered with high, strained laughter.

'You're tired, your mother's tired,' Royal announced, standing up. He patted his hand over his waistcoat, and then, 'Anne, I've forgotten my wallet.'

'Allow me,' said Will, and brought out his own.

He pretended to count through a wad of notes before placing the allowance he received from the War Office onto the table. It was supposed to go toward a new suit.

'Good of you, Blythe,' Royal said, and helped the ladies into their coats. 'My thanks for escorting my daughter home safely. Accept this with my compliments.'

In the murk of the hotel Will reaches under the blanket and into his trouser pocket, and retrieves the token of appreciation. A small ivory coloured card with royal blue script introducing _R.M.C. Gardner,_ _Esq. ~Artiste & Explorer_.

He studies it for a moment, holding it up to a pale beam of light that slips through the hotel window. Then he grabs the small box next to his bed, snaps a match, and burns it.

 **...**

 *** a Sopwith Camel is a two seater biplane with two fixed machine guns. Parachutes weren't introduced until 1919**

 **I'm posting this with some trepidation because of the changes from present tense to past tense and back again. Please let me know if this reads like a hot mess. And thank you for your encouragement, I truly have the most passionate and intelligent readers.**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter five**_

 _ **May, 1919**_

Will's father bought him a new suit. Dido's mother bought her a number of things, including the sleek new bathing costume she is wearing. Her left foot paddles idly in Fountain Lake, her right knee bearing her pointed chin as she watches the boy in the water. When he emerges his lips are blue. He lifts himself onto the white painted dock and lies on his back enjoying the way the water runs from his limbs. There is such a sky above him, an unflinching cobalt streaked with cirrus. He can smell aviation fuel, hear the rumble of the rotary engine and the reassuring clatter of Redbeard's machine gun bursting behind his back.

'You won't get me in there,' says Dido, lifting her leg from the water and patting it down with her towel.

'What about up there,? Will says, lazily, pointing to his perfect sky. 'You liked that well enough, and it was colder than Christmas in Yukon.'

'If you remember, Captain Blythe, I had to wear reindeer skin boots and Marielle's full length fox-fur when we went flying. Not a nifty little swimming costume.'

Will turns his head to admire the way the fine black wool clings to her breasts and her thighs. It has a low scooped neck and wide armholes, and finishes many inches above her knee. She would never get away with this at the Drummond Street Bathhouse, but here by the lake that borders the grounds of Alderley Dido can be comfortably scandalous.

He doesn't tell her how superbly she fills her costume, his gaze returns to the sky.

'If _you_ remember I'm no longer a Captain. Just plain ol' Mr Blythe.'

'I'd rather plain Mr Blythe lying next to me than a Captain under a headstone.'

She stands up and throws her towel at him, then pushes her feet into her sandals.

'Come on, you promised me lunch.'

Their meal consists of day old bread smothered with butter and jam. Afterwards, when Dido is pulling up her stockings she can smell strawberries on her skin. Will is mending a bicycle tyre. His hand holds an innertube immersed in a bucket of water, which drips onto the white quartz shingle when he waves her out of his way.

'You're in my light,' he says, squinting up at her as she shuffles to the left.

'Speaking of,' she says, 'you'll have to skulk about in the dark tonight. Keep to the room in the eaves or better yet stay in town. The party starts at eight, and judging by the guest list I imagine half of them will end up in a drunken orgy down here. The boat house has a bit of a reputation-'

Will wipes his palms on his trousers and considers the elegant building he's been sleeping in for the last week. The mullioned windows and toffee-coloured timbers; it looks more like a fairytale cottage than a den of sin.

'In that case I might stay after all-'

Dido laughs. 'Don't you dare! They'll sniff you out in a moment and the jig will be up-'

'Because I come off as a peasant, no doubt-'

'Because,' Dido says, 'you are ten times the man they are.'

She reaches for him and knocks the bucket over. The words drat and lummox are uttered between kisses, and the water soaks her sandals.

By the time Lester is opening the door of the Daimler for Miss Gardner, Will has cycled into town. There is no chance of them meeting. He has gone to Bunt's Athletic Club near the chapel on Patterson Street, Dido to a tailor on Gallant Avenue where she was due her final fitting.

Royal is anxious, if the gown needs further altering it cannot be worn to the party tonight. The one hundred foot garland of ivory roses he has ordered for the central staircase won't compliment his daughter half so well if she descends into the great hall and isn't wearing white. She's already half an hour late, and he has an appointment to keep with the sommelier concerning some champagne. When Dido finally arrives the tailor takes note of Mr Gardner's face and excuses himself to check on a order for tweed he knows very well was delivered this morning.

'Sorry!' she says, breathlessly, 'I'm not too late am I, forgive me, won't you? My sandals got wet of all things, I had to wait till they dried out because I wanted to wear this,' she explains, touching her linen sailor suit.

'Drying your- ' Royal splutters, jamming on his gloves. 'Keeping us waiting over some vain whim-'

'I wonder where I get it from,' Dido smirks.

Her father pretends not to hear. He waves farewell to Dido and his wife and strides out of the fitting room, though not before giving himself a brief glance in the mirrored wall.

Anne has been sitting on the blue velvet chaise, chewing the inside of her cheeks. She approaches her daughter and releases the buttons at the back of her blouse.

'Wet sandals?'

'I dropped them in the lake-' says Dido, smoothly. She has done this before and knows that they float.

'You've been spending quite a lot of time down there since you came home.'

Dido wants to say she isn't home; that Alderley can never be home for her now. That home -HOME- is wherever William John Blythe is -which happens to be at the end of the walled garden, through a stand of spruce trees, and across the bridge to the boat house.

'I suppose I have,' she says, and loathes herself for it. She sounds as slippery and vague as her Aunt Aline. 'Have you heard from Aunt Dorothy, Mamma?' she asks, referring to Aline's younger sister. 'Is she able to come to the do tonight?'

'She telephoned this morning, I went to your room to tell you but you'd already gone-'

The gown appears, carried in the arms of Henry's assistant, and it's as rare and weightless as the clouds Will watched this morning. Layers of gossamer silk slip about Dido's body like milky bathwater. Anne stares at her daughter with a pang of loss. She can no longer pretend that Dido is a little girl anymore. She has her mother's small bosom, though not her full hips. It's just as well, all the girls like to pass for boys these days. 'Binding their chests and cutting their hair,' Royal likes to say as he tuts over the morning paper, 'it's not right!'

Dido observes her mother's face in the mirror.

'It's the length, isn't it? I should have listened to Henry and had it hemmed shorter. I know it's old fashioned, but I just adore the way the handkerchief skirts flutter over my feet-'

Anne bites her cheek again. In her day girls wanted to wear their dresses as long as they could as soon as they could. Now you were considered a 'Dulcie Dullard' if your entire ankle, to say nothing of your calf, wasn't in full view.

'It's perfect, darling. You're perfect,' Anne declares.

She goes to kiss the top of her head and Dido pulls away.

'I am not,' she retorts, there's a smile in her voice but her eyes flash coldly. 'And don't ever call me that again.'

Dido Gardner has to put up with far worse than 'perfect' that evening. When she walks down the stairs on her father's arm she is a vision, an angel, and when she rebuffs the fellows who huddle at the bottom of them she is a minx and a tease. What she never is, however, is a damsel in distress. Anne can comfortably leave her in the company of Rupert Sorrel and Jasper Dudley-Davidson. She wanders by Mrs Sorrel who is discussing the hotel she stayed in on the Spanish Steps, with Royal, who is currently working on a painting of it. Sidles past the husband of one of her publishers, a poet who hasn't written a word for three years, a musician who is in love with him, another writer who left for the Front with two eyes and came back with one, a widow, another widow, another widow...

Dorothy Tremblay is one of them. She sits in the Garden Room, so called because the walls have been decorated to look like a garden, though not by Royal. He painted the alcove on one side of the fireplace with peonie roses in the style of William Morris, and then lost interest. They ordered wallpaper for the rest. There are French windows to the east and a patch of damp above it. The wiring needs to be redone and there is no electric light. Dorothy has lit a tall tapered candle which throws gold into the room. It's a warm light; a friendly light, as Anne used to say. She is reminded of the candle she used to signal Diana from her gable window, and realises that not one guest at this party means as much to her as her Avonlea chum.

A familiar feeling rises in her throat, the one she cannot release except with a scream. She nods at her sister-in-law and turns to leave.

'Do I look that pitiful?' Dorothy says, her small mouth smiling.

Anne glances back and affects to give her an appraising look. Dorothy shares the same colouring as Royal, or once did. His hair is still quite black -what's left of it- while Dorothy's is threaded with white. She favours long strings of pearls now, and fine lace collars, which makes all that grey look modish yet soft.

'Yes, you do,' Anne says, stepping into the room. 'I was about to bring Francis in here, he's looking for a model-'

'Not for that dreadful war memorial-'

'There is that, I suppose. Though, naturally I was referring to his-' Anne pauses, the candle-flame glinting in her eyes, 'sculptural _homage_ to the Bard _,'_ she declares, in a morose Irish accent. 'You know, the one he's been working on for thirty years. He's looking for someone to model a Weird Sister-'

'Ho ho!' says Dorothy, rolling her handkerchief into a ball and tucking it inside the sleeve of her black crepe gown. She rises from the low leather chair and beckons to Anne, suggestively. 'Come on then, let's see if we can't make some toil and trouble.'

The two women open the French windows and step onto dark lawns. Dorothy holds the candle which lays a circle of light where they walk and drips of wax in a trail behind them.

'How's my niece, are they all in love with her yet?' she asks, above the sound of their footsteps on the white gravel path.

'If Roy has his way she'll be announcing her engagement by the end of the night-'

'Not to Captain Blythe I take it?'

'No-' Anne says.

They talk some more about Royal's being against the match, which strangely doesn't vex Anne half so much as the fact Dido doesn't seem the least upset by it.

'I should be glad she takes her father's part and has made this all so easy, and yet-'

'You're disappointed in her-'

'Yes! Her letters, Dorothy, they were filled with such... Well, I'm sure _you_ heard about Will Blythe long before I did-'

'Not from Dido,' Dorothy answers, carefully. 'From Aline. His squadron was posted at de Courcelette-'

'Are you telling me Dido and Will were living under the same roof?'

'We're talking quite some roof. Chateau de Courcelette has seventeen bedrooms -you know the size of the place. The RFC had an HQ there, Aline had no choice but to put them all up. Though I imagine it was those poor pilots who were forced to put up with her.'

Anne smiles briefly.

'It won't surprise you when I say how glad I am that it was your sister who moved to the north of France and not you.'

Dorothy stops. They have passed through the red door of the walled garden and stand on a wooden bridge, in the Japanese style after Claude Monet. Moonlight like cherry blossom falls on the water, Anne leans on the hand rail and remembers an overcast afternoon in Dalhousie Park. The fleck of salt on his cheek, the way his coat flew out behind him.

'There's something I am surprised at,' Dorothy ventures, looking into the water and not at Anne. 'I thought -I hoped at least, that when Dido came home you would, too. You've never been wholly here since she left for that ridiculous lyceum-'

'You'd better not let her catch you calling it that.'

 _'Ladies_ Academy. You know and I know it was a finishing school-'

Anne rests her hand upon Dorothy's.

'I believe it did finish her in a way,' she says. 'The old Dido, the girl I knew, it's as though... she's gone. I don't understand her, I don't understand-'

'You're speaking of William Blythe again-'

'I _thought_ she was in love with him, I _saw_ she was in love with him, and now... Nothing. He's goes back with his -his father to Boston, and what does my daughter do? Buys new dresses, goes to parties, _laughs_ , knowing he has gone for good. It's not right-'

'You know what's not right, darling? _You_. Borrowing trouble when you should be relieved. Look at the heartache she's spared you and Roy-'

'I don't want to be spared, I tell you-'

'Oh, Anne, I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. You've never loved and lost, you couldn't have or you wouldn't wish it on your daughter.'

There is no way for Anne to argue, not when Dorothy buried her husband four months ago.

'I'm going to push on to the boathouse,' she says, with a voice that suggests Dorothy shouldn't.

The candle is offered and Anne shakes her head.

'I'll tell my brother you're strolling the grounds, then,' Dorothy says, though they both know he won't notice her absence.

They seemed so right for each other. Perhaps not at first, when Anne refused Roy after graduating Redmond Dorothy was disappointed but unsurprised. Roy had a lot of growing up to do, he had the looks of a Greek god and the temperament of a thirteen year old boy. The second time he proposed, however, a decade and one failed marriage had worked upon him. He saw in her a kind of redemption, she saw in him... well, she was thirty-three by then. They are lauded throughout Kingsport as the embodiment of modern marriage; Anne, the acclaimed writer, Roy, a creditable artist. They have money and friends and secure reputations, and her beloved childhood home.

Dorothy gazes up at the hundred year old building. Alderley has seen better days. The cracks on the east facade now gape, the ivy has been allowed to advance over the plaster work, and in some places into the walls. The garden looks almost wild, Dorothy thinks, remembering how it bloomed when she was a girl. There were neat beds of orange and yellow and blue, instead of this ill-suited meadowy style that has now taken over.

The paths too are in need of repair. The cobblestones are jaundiced with lichen, and the walkways... Dorothy tuts as she spies a wide gash in the white stone shingle where some lunatic has skidded his bicycle wheel.

She lights a cigarette with the candle, kicking the pebbles into the gaps as she smokes it. Then she presses the end under her heel, picks it up, and walks back into the house.

...

 _ *** the Weird Sisters are from Macbeth**_

 _ *** the RFC was the Royal Flying Corp, renamed the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1918**_

 **Amazing reviews from you all. I find myself anticipating your comments as much as I hope you look forward to my updates -the things you notice! This was a quiet, scene setting sort of chapter, maybe I overdid the gravel... Much love, Katherine**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter six**_

Lining the wall of the boat house like sailors in their hammocks, a blue painted dory, a punt in the Oxford style, and a cedar canoe. All testament to the whims of the Gardner family, who saw in each vessel some memory or dream they wanted to give to their daughter. They laugh about it now and admit they are more the dangling-their-feet-in-the-river sorts than able seamen. All the same it doesn't surprise Anne to find a battered copy of The Life Book here.

In the light that pours from the open door she can make out writing in the margins, frenzied underlinings, and here and there a torn strip of paper with more thoughts described. There is something familiar about the hand, the way g's look like figure eights and the capital A's like volcanoes. She pictures Dido's chums as she flicks through the pages, trying to put a face to the scrawl. It doesn't occur to her to read any of it, there is nothing new that anyone could say.

The Life Book of Captain Jim is the stuff of literary legend; its startling almost mythical tales have been written about and argued over almost as much as the identity of its author. No one knows who Owen Ford is, except Royal Gardner, who likes to remind the papers every three or four months that he is never going to tell. His neat pen and ink illustrations are in this copy. Most reprints feature the work of another artist, whose whimsical water-colours made the book come alive and assured its place as one of the most beloved books not only in Canada, but the world over.

Anne smiles at Royal's depiction of Lost Margaret lying in her dory as the tides comes in to claim her. She looks like Dido, though Anne knows she was based on Dorothy. In Anne's mind however, Margaret should have looked like that unfortunate lily-maid, Elaine. As she thinks this she reads in the left hand margin,

' _All but her face, her clear featured face_

 _Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,_

 _But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled.'_

The boat house echoes with the sound of the book slamming shut. Anne tosses it into a crate and seeks out the narrow stairs that will take her to the attic in the eaves. The light is whiter up here and casts a grid of shadow over tins of paint and odd shaped sacks that crowd along the floor. Under the arched window is an empty space about six foot long, and attached to the roof beam another sack hanging from a chain. Anne slides her hands over it the way she would slide her hands over a man's chest. It looks like an old kit-bag and smells of sawdust. She pushes it away and has to dodge it when it swiftly arcs back at her.

'Nice move, you're light on your feet.'

Anne grasps at the bag and brings it to a stop.

'Hello Will,' she says, peering from behind it.

'Mrs Gardner,' Will says, ducking around her and removing a rolled up blanket from the eaves. He kicks aside a small barrel and retrieves a lantern. 'I don't suppose there's any point in saying I'm only here to collect my stuff-'

Anne grins at him.

'So long as you _are_ collecting your things. I'm afraid you can't stay here.'

'Fair enough,' he says, good-naturedly. 'Can you pass me that pan -and the plate, over by those oars?'

Anne does so and follows him down the stairs. It amazes her that he can manage the steep descent while carrying such a load, she grins again and shakes her head. Outside a bicycle is lying on its side. Will picks it up and dumps his belongings in the basket between the handlebars, and kicks out the stand.

'Do you mind if I take a breather before the off? I've done forty miles on this today,' he says, motioning to his bike, 'and my hands are in a bit of a mess.'

'Your hands?' Anne says.

She finds herself wanting to take them in her own and kiss away the hurt as though he was her son. Instead she crosses her arms.

'Whatever's happened to them? There's a doctor or two up at the house, if you like I could fetch one-'

Will shoots her a look, one that was once very familiar.

'I don't think that would be a good idea, do you?'

Anne laughs. 'No, you're right.'

There is something in that laughter -or rather an absence, as though bindings are coming undone. She breathes in and out as if only now realising how tightly they'd been wound about her.

They stroll to the dock, Anne folding her legs in the Turkish style while Will lies on his stomach and plunges his hands into the cool waters of the lake. When he sighs he sounds like Katherine when she would close the door on the last pupil on the last day of term. Cloud shadow absorbs the light and the night seems louder, closer. Anne is sure she can hear the birds burrowing into their beds; the sounds coming from Will's throat as his Adam's apple bobs up and down.

'Have you been in a fight?' she jokes, and is amazed to hear him say yes.

'Not a brawl-' he adds quickly, 'a proper fight. You know, down at Bunt's.'

'You mean _boxing_?'

It's Will's turn to laugh.

'There I was thinking you wouldn't know what I was talking about. Yes, boxing. Welterweight,' he says, inching up onto his knees. 'Did Dido never tell you?'

He is answered with silence.

'No- I, ah, I don't suppose she did,' he mumbles, examining his knuckles. 'Troy has a jaw like an anvil, my hands have been minced.'

'Will, what are you doing here?' Anne says, quietly. 'And I don't mean why are you storing your belongings here, I mean why are you here -at Alderley -without invitation? And presumably without your father's knowledge?'

The cocky look that Will has been wearing flees from his face. He regards Anne anew; she must know his father better than he thought if she is astute enough to bring him up. He shakes his head, nursing one hand in the other and rubbing his knuckles, slowly.

'I have no right to expect you'll do this but please don't tell Dads that I'm here. He'd kill me.'

Anne reaches for his hand and he lays it on her knee while she presses around each bone, seeking out a break. He sucks in his breath as she rolls a knuckle between her fingers, but does not withdraw. Anne can't help thinking that her daughter is more qualified to check for injuries, though she's not about to fetch her. Nor tell Gilbert.

'Well, I don't want a murder on my hands,' she says, releasing him, 'And I hope there's none on _yours_ , either.'

'I'm not a thug, if that's what you mean,' he says, stiffly. 'I won fair and square. I can pay you board and lodging if you like.'

He pulls out a bundle of sticky bills.

'I don't want your money, Will, a straight answer will do.'

'Alright,' he says, stuffing the money back into his pocket. 'I'm here because Dido asked me here-'

'You never went back to Boston-'

'Boston? No! Neither did Dads. He's in Vancouver-'

Anne resists the temptation to ask why; it's becoming apparent that Will is as deft at dodging questions as he is his opponent's fists.

'I'm not interested in Dr Blythe's movements, only yours.'

'You know, he said you were an old friend of his -you don't seem like old friends-'

' _Will-_ '

'I'm broke, Mrs Gardner, and I need a place to stay while I get some money together... and because... I love your daughter.'

'Tell me everything from the beginning,' Anne says. Not because she believes there is more to know but because she needs time to digest the idea that Dido has been lying to her. That Will Blythe isn't a spurned suitor but her lover.

From the moment she saw him appear behind the punching bag she told herself how like his mother he was. His eyes weren't hazel at all, but amber. And his top lip, in two half moons that tuck into the corners of his mouth in little upward curls, were certainly more Brooke-ish than Blythe. Then there was way he had of avoiding her questions, that was Katherine to a T. Until he uttered the word 'love' and his voice took on a quality that was so much like his father's Anne was there in the orchard at Patty's Place. The day Gilbert spoke to her and she refused him with what now seems an inexpressible coldness; one she cannot remember without experiencing physical shame.

Her throat goes dry, her heart contracts in what feels like a kind of dying, and she listens to Gilbert's son reveal what is sure to be the cleaned-up version of his and Dido's love story.

'I told Dads I was going to look up a colleague of his, and I did, but he's away till June. Then Tash -I mean Dido- offers to let me stay here, just for the night. One night became two, then three- and the next thing you know I'm living here- But it was only ever a short term thing till I got my first match -till I _won_ my first match, I mean. And I have now, so...'

'So?' Anne manages to say.

'There's no need to tell anyone, Dads especially-' he says, hopefully.

It's interesting to Anne that Will is more afraid of what his father will think of him than Mr Gardner. She unfolds her legs and Will leaps to his feet and offers a bruised hand. They walk toward his bicycle. Anne can hear the sounds of gravel being crunched under foot, a young woman squealing excitedly, and the pale refrain of 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' echoing through the spruce grove.

'Wheel your bike into the boat house, quickly-' Anne says, 'while I get rid of them.'

Will is left waiting for close to an hour before the door to the boathouse opens again. Dido appears like an kind of angel. He has never seen her look so beautiful; walking towards him in her sheer, white gown, her dark hair crowned with ribbons and pearls that are woven around her head. He is afraid to touch her, she has become one of them, and feels his place in her world slip away.

Not the magnificence of Alderley, nor Mr Gardner's contempt, or even his father's warnings, have made him see quite as clearly as he does now that the dream he has of marrying this girl will only ever be a dream.

'What- what is it? You look as though you've seen a ghost-' says Dido, bolting the door.

With every step she takes toward him he moves a step away.

'I wasn't sure who it was,' he mutters. 'Your mother said she was going to get rid of some guests.'

It occurs to him now that perhaps she wanted to get rid if him.

'Forget Mamma, Will, why are you backing away... is it bad, are you mangled? I've been so anxious. It's pathetic, isn't it, how quickly one gets used to the ordinary life? I don't think I was half so worried for you up there as I was thinking about your fight tonight. I'm going to make a useless boxer's moll... Will?'

Her hands reach out in the gloom and touch his face, running her palms over his forehead, his nose, his cheek. She can feel him tremble and there are tears on her fingers.

'You're scaring me now,' she says, 'what has happened, it's not Troy is it? You didn't-'

Will bats her away.

'Stop talking about the damn fight. It's over, I won-'

'You won! Oh Will! I _knew_ it, I knew you could do it-'

'A second ago you said you were worried about me -that you weren't cut out to be a the wife of a boxer-'

Dido pulls away, confused.

'Can you come out of the dark -can we go upstairs, have you already packed?'

'Yes,' says Will, 'I have to leave tonight.'

'That's not what Mamma told me. She said you could camp out here one for more night, though you'll have to make yourself scarce in the morning.'

'What, no invitation to use the spare room?'

'Now I'm certain you've taken a blow to the brainbox, where is this coming from all of a sudden?'

'I've just been thinking, that's all.'

'Well, stop thinking. Kiss me.'

He grabs at her roughly, pushing his lips against hers until she is bent so far back her heels catch the hem of her handkerchief skirts, causing it to tear. He wants it ruined. He wants her in her black wool bathing costume, in shapeless khakis and silly sailor dresses, and pulls away expecting to be told what a brute he is for spoiling her expensive gown. Instead Dido slides it over her head, tossing it carelessly onto the end of the cedar canoe. She stands in the dim light in her stockings and underwear, the pearls in her hair match the lustre of her skin. Will realises now why she looks so strange; her freckles are gone, she has covered them with powder.

'Make love to me,' she says, simply.

Will drags his eyes away to where her dress hangs like an old discarded skin.

'Do you know how many fights I'd need to win just to buy you one of those?'

'What on earth are you on about -what did Mamma _say_ to you?'

'Nothing. Like I said, I've been thinking about things and I don't see how we can make this work-'

' _You_ don't see? _We_ had a plan, remember? To get some money so that we can marry. I kept up my end, Lord knows I would run away with you tomorrow if you'd let me. You seem to care more about what my parents think than _I_ do!'

Will wants to shake her and tell her that his mates were right. That she's a brat, that he'll wish he had burned, if five years from now -one year from now- he looks at his beloved girl and sees regret staring back.

He shrugs his shoulders and walks toward the door.

'Don't you do this-' Dido pleads.

Will allows himself the barest glance, she has slipped back into her dress. He's glad, because it makes this easier to say.

'You know what I was thinking tonight, after I saw your mother? I was thinking I could just tell her that I knew who wrote this,' he says, picking up the copy of The Life Book from the crate. 'That I could simply ask her what my silence was worth, and then just like that I would have her blessing and your father's, and who knows... a nice little cheque every month to keep you in white silk gowns-'

'I hate you...'

Will grabs his bicycle and unbolts the door.

'Good,' he says softly, and kicks it shut behind him.

 **...**

 _ *** poetry fragment from Tennyson's Idylls of the King. It's a reference to chapter 28, An Unfortunate Lily Maid, in Anne of Green Gables**_

 _ *** The story of Lost Margaret and The Life Book of Captain Jim are references to the book in Anne's House of Dreams. As this is an AU I have given the book, and its author, a whole new life.**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter seven**_

 _ **June 1919  
**_

Jack Wright pulls into Bright River station and parks in the shade of a wild cherry tree. He tucks his hair under his cap and brushes down his overall. Red dust flies from his hand as he waves back at Anne. Dido directs the porter. At least he thinks it's Dido -it's hard to tell from the gauzy white hat.

'Ma would have come but there wasn't room,' he says, shoving two trunks into the back of the pick up. 'Unless you wanted to sit in the rear with the rest of your kind, Dodo-'

Dido looks to where Jack is pointing, at a crate of crooning Silkie hens.

'Drop dead, Jack-' she sighs, and slams the truck door shut.

It swings open again and Jack darts back to secure it with the twine he keeps attached to the handle.

'I could have done that,' she says, as he slides behind the wheel. 'I _can_ manage a truck, you know.'

'Yeah, but can you manage a piece of string?' he jokes, as he revs up the engine.

Anne gives him a nudge. She is squeezed between the two of them. Jack's brown arm dangles outside the cab while Dido stares out at the pale crescent hanging over the trees. She imagines they are racing it. If they win, she tells herself, when she returns to Kingsport Will Blythe will be at the station to meet her. If the moon wins... well she hopes he breaks his nose, his jaw and both hands, in that order.

'What's she so mopey about?' Jack says to Anne, loud enough for Dido to hear over the rattling engine.

Before Anne can think of an answer they hit a pothole and the crowns of two magnificent hats are crushed into the ceiling. Dido removes hers and plucks viciously at the creamy chiffon.

'Honestly Jack, would you like me to drive? You wouldn't have lasted five minutes on the Bapaume Road-'

Anne's elbow goes for Dido this time. It's no secret that Jack had wanted to go to war but was ordered to remain in Avonlea to oversee dairy production. He ignored the white feathers, even made peace with the fact that some of his mates never came back. What Jack cannot stand is that any oaf who had the dumb luck to wear khaki now has two or three girls hanging off his arm, sighing over his bravery and swooning over his scars. He avoids going into town now. 'Tripled our milk output,' is not the answer a woman wants to hear when she asks what he did in the war.

The next six miles to Lone Willow Farm pass wordlessly, but instead of feeling relieved Jack is oddly disconcerted. He's usually had a thousand questions hurled at him by now; he is too shy to ask any of his own. Not when Aunt Anne has the Charlottetown library is named after her. When they veer into the Avenue her silence sits more comfortably. Without looking he knows Anne will have her hands clasped under her chin, staring in wide eyed amazement as they pass under the cherry trees that form a bower over the road. The White Way of Delight, she calls it, and this afternoon Jack might agree. The scent of blossom overpowers the diesel fumes and they rain on his truck like babies' fists.

Anne releases a sigh and Jack and Dido eye each other, knowingly. The same thing happens every June, and they've spent every one together. Except for the war, of course -but then war takes whatever it wants.

None of this shows on Diana's face, though her rounded figure might hint that she took her comforts where she could find them, and they were usually found in the larder. She scurries out to meet them, her dark eyes shining, her cheeks as petally soft as the blossoms that have collected in the back of her son's pick-up.

The house is filled with the smell of three cheese pie and words spilling over each other. Anne slips into the old life, gladly. Nothing says Avonlea quite so well as the promise of a good meal and bad gossip.

'Oh, darlings, was it too awful in that old truck? Fred took the saloon to Carmody to fetch the girls -they'd never fit otherwise. Though Jack seems to think it perfectly reasonable to have the children ride in the back like animals-'

'Oh?' says Dido. 'I thought that privilege was reserved for me.'

'Jacky you _didn't_?' Diana says, gaping at her son.

Jack shovels another piece of pie in his mouth.

'Did you still want me to run up to Elmfield, Ma?'

'No-o,' his mother says, fussing with a black curl. 'Your brother telephoned after you left to say he wouldn't be able to make it after all. I'm sorry Anne, really I am -we never know how he'll be from one day to the next...'

Anne rises from the dining chair and nestles her chin on Diana's shoulder. She feels deliciously soft in her mohair sweater and printed silk, like a handful of Turkish Delight.

'We're here till the end of August, Di. We have all the time in the world.'

It's not until the table has been cleared by Delia's three daughters and the dishes begun by Jack and Dido, that Diana dares ask how it is that Royal can spare his women for three whole months.

'Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to have you, you know that I am-'

'It's a shame this summer happens to be the one that Davy chose to take Millie on her _grand tour_.'

'Grand tour!' Diana says, tucking her shawl over her generous bosom, 'I'd like to see Fred take me to Newfoundland, I'd throw him off the boat and think twice before tossing the life preserver!'

She links her arm with her friend, and though neither has asked the other they both head toward the cemetery. If Anne was at her desk trying to conjure the perfect word to describe this evening, she would choose balmy. Not only because it captures the temperate breeze that suffuses the twilight, but because it feels like a balm as well. She feels anointed and soothed whenever she comes here, and aches whenever she leaves.

Warm fingers of shifting air tug at her limbs; she longs to run. Instead she removes the tortoiseshell combs from her hair and lets the wind play.

' _That_ was a shivery sound,' says Diana, arching her brows. 'Are you missing Roy already?'

'It won't make the least bit of difference if I am, it's not likely I'll see him again till mid September.'

Anne lays posies of coltsfoot and mayflowers on the Cuthbert graves, while Diana makes her way to the memorial garden. Delia's husband is remembered here, just his name and that of the battle he lost his life in. There is no need for anything else, Neuve Chapelle is enough.

'Is Fred Jr still trying to sell Elmfield?' Anne asks, as they cross Newbridge Road and enter the Haunted Wood.

'Don't get me started-' Diana replies, with a voice that suggests she has been waiting to do just that. 'It's not enough that we lost so many, but the ones who made it back, do you think they want to farm? They're all off to Charlottetown, or worse -the _mainland_. The Island's got too small for them... I don't understand it, what could be lovelier than this dear old place? Town is just town, but Avonlea is...'

'Home,' Anne says, softly.

'Though, of course,' Diana adds, 'if I had a place like Alderley I might think twice-'

Anne wraps her arms around Diana's plump waist and squeezes her, affectionately.

'You'd still chose the Island, and that's why I love you.'

'It's a shame Roy couldn't come this year,' Diana says, steering the conversation to that unanswered question.

Anne knows she has been bested and looks resolutely ahead.

'No -yes, it is a shame,' she says, flatly. 'But Aline has summoned her brother and he must go.'

The light in the woods dissolves through the canopy and drops tiny stars of green light on their skin. If green had a smell it would smell like this, Anne thinks, and makes a mental note to jot that down when she returns to Lone Willow. Which character would say such a thing- Araminta Acorn perhaps, or the Aspen Prince?

'I don't blame you for not wanting to accompany him,' say Diana, passing in front to pull a low branch away from the path. 'Not that I've been to France, but I hardly think now is the time for a visit. The things you see on those _movies_ at Charlottetown; miles and miles of countryside with not a leaf nor bit of grass to be seen. Laurie Bell said if it wasn't for each side wearing different helmets he wouldn't have been able to tell friend from foe there was that much mud.'

'Laurie Bell? Is he a regular visitor to you and yours, I remember he was quite sweet on Delia once upon a time.'

'And I remember when Gil Blythe was sweet on you -but there you go. No use living in yesterdays.'

'Indeed,' says Anne, glancing sideways at her friend.

She knows Diana only summons Gilbert's name when she wants to shut her up -and usually succeeds. But for whatever reason: the war being over; having Dido all to herself; a long Avonlea summer spooling out before her; that careless, carefree sense that she is unravelling with it, Anne decides this time she is not going to let it go.

'I saw him, you know -Gilbert... at Kingsport station. You won't believe it but his boy, Will-'

'He served in the RAF, didn't he? Poor Jacky, he just about ate his heart out when he learned that.'

'Yes,' Anne says, quickly, 'he met up with Dido -over in France... Isn't that miraculous? Of all people to meet with each other, two Islanders-'

Diana stifles a smile. No one she knows would characterise Will Blythe and Dido Gardner as Islanders. But she lets it pass, not least because she has never known Anne to speak of the Blythes so willingly.

'Why was Gilbert meeting Will in Kingsport when they live in Boston?'

'Because Dido lives in Kingsport,' Anne says, trusting Diana won't need the significance of this to be spelled out.

Diana halts and turns to her friend, her dark eyes are almost as wide as her mouth. She clutches Anne's hand. Not for all the world did she expect a piece of news like this. She can barely get the words out.

'Are you... Anne, are you telling me that- I cannot believe I'm asking you this- are you telling me Dido is _engaged_... to Will _Blythe_?'

'That I cannot say,' Anne says, honestly.

They have reached Lover's Lane. Some thoughful soul has made a bench from fallen birch logs. Anne sits, looking over the names carved into it. Unlike the names etched into the porch of the old school house, these lovers never came back. She runs her finger over Tommy Fletcher 1916, Sam Boulter Jr 1918 and an echo of that wounded sound emerges from her throat.

Diana sits by her side, rubbing her strong hands over Anne's back. She can feel her spine through the embroidered butterflies on her cloak.

'What's happened to me, Di... I don't know myself.'

'I think you're exhausted, Anne Gardner. I think that every time I catch you with a pen in your hand this summer I am going to replace it with one of my prizewinning lemon curd doughnuts, till you have dimples on your dimples, and you can't work the typewriter keys.'

'I think Royal would have a fit,' Anne says, with a weak smile.

'Anne, is- is everything alright- between the two of you, I mean... You'd tell me, wouldn't you?' Diana says, carefully.

Anne wants to laugh at the idea that anything could be wrong, and steels herself to look into the eyes of her dearest, oldest friend, and lie. But the lie won't come. Instead she tells her of the letter Dido sent and Roy's response -Diana rolls her eyes at this but says nothing- about seeing Gilbert for those brief few minutes, and Dido announcing the Blythe men had returned to Boston.

'I discovered Will at Alderley, the night of Dido's homecoming party. He'd been living in the boat house the entire time. And instead of inviting him in -welcoming him the way I would welcome the child of any dear friend of mine- I sent him away. _Worse,_ I asked him to hide as though I felt ashamed. And I'm not- I wasn't. I could have helped him, Diana, but I told him to go. I don't know why... if I'm honest I was more pleased than surprised to find him there-'

'Did Dido know he was there?' Diana asks, and Anne nods. 'Well, no wonder you were at sixes and sevens. If I'd found Jerry Meredith in Delia's hayloft then ring or no ring I would have prodded him out with a pitch fork.'

'Who in the world is Jerry Meredith?'

'The Carmody school master, don't you remember? We've all been on eggshells for months because he was listed wounded and missing. Then Delia gets a letter from Glen St Mary last Monday -the Merediths are Glen people, but very respectable, his father is a minister- to say he's alive and well and due back in two weeks. The wedding's set for the end of July.'

'Oh, Diana that's wonderful,' Anne says, and then, 'Poor Laurie Bell.'

'I've troubles enough without Laurie Bell,' Diana says, tartly.

'Whereas I seem to borrow mine-'

'That sounds like something Roy would say. Is that why he allowed you to come for the whole summer, to keep Will and Dido apart?'

Anne shakes her head. She remembers Dido yanking her into the kitchen demanding to know what she said to Will. Royal hastening after them, begging for quiet because the servants could hear, then drawing every guest in the house as he ordered his daughter to explain why her new gown was torn.

'You make it sound so romantic-' she murmurs.

Diana takes Anne's hand.

'Funny how things turn out, isn't it, dearest. It used to be you who was the romantic one.'

 **...**

 _ ***In the books Jack Wright is around Jem Blythe's age, but as this is an AU I have made him the same age as Dido (who is the same age as Rilla. For no particular reason I just liked the tip o' the hatness of it.)**_

 _ ***Bapaume Road is in the Somme  
**_

 _ ***Delia is Small Anne-Cordelia**_

 _ ***The battle of Neuve Chapelle was in 1915**_

 **I think we are about half-way through the story now. The rest of the action will take place on the Island, and yes Dr Blythe and his son still have big parts to play. Thanks again for your comments and questions.  
**

 **Diana -I'm very fond of your mind, too!  
**

 **Cynthia -Thanks for your beautiful message. I'm a lurker myself, so I know what I big deal it is to leave a message. I am going to write an Anne of Green Gables story, but it will be a contemporary take. After I've completed the Letters I have plans for one more 19th C tale, about Anne of Avonlea. I've mentioned it in my Bio. As to your story ideas, you know the adage 'write the story you want to read' -that's how I got started and I encourage you to revisit your imaginings and write your own. Anne-fans are a generous, big hearted bunch, please think about giving it a go :o)**

 **FKAJ -You know if there is even the smallest possibility that the answer might be Gilbert then it's definitely Gilbert ;o)  
**

 **Erika -As much as it would be fun to have Dido and Will as little versions of Anne and Gilbert it was the other parents that influenced their characterisation the most. How would a girl turn out of she had Royal for a father; what sort of son would Katherine have? In that way they became themselves.**

 **Kim Blythe -I had doubts about Dido using the word hate, but in the end no other word would do. It was a reference to Anne calling Gilbert a 'mean, hateful boy' in A Tempest in the School Teapot', and to one of my fave Anne quotes, 'hate is only love that's lost its way'. Boxing was inspired by a movie character, not Cruise or Crowe but Cusack (John Cusack from Say Anything) Oh, and Will is supposed to go back to school in September.**

 **AlinyaAlethia -Thank you for saying you have come to care about the characters I have invented. You more than anyone will know it's a big ask of a Fanfic audience, so it means a lot :o)**

 **Rose -see my comment to FKAJ :o)**

 **PelirrojaBiu -I know, that Tennyson quote, right? I ended up reading the entire poem and it clarified so many ideas for this story. The parallels between Elaine and Lost Margaret were too big to ignore, and I've always felt sad about Anne turning down the opportunity to write the Life Book, so I gave it to her myself! (And it feels really good.)**


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter eight**_

 _ **July, 1919**_

Dido is still brushing her teeth when she hears Jack leave. His truck sounds as though it runs on rocks, and is half way down Lone Willow drive before she reaches it. She hammers at the door, her mouth white at the corners, huffing indignantly.

'You said you weren't going till five!' she says, pulling on the handle.

The stupid thing won't open. Before Jack can give it a kick the girl swings her leg through the open window and tumbles onto the seat.

'Where'd you get those?' Jack asks, looking sidelong at the trousers she's wearing.

The tan corderoy is strangely familiar, the way the fabric has worn smooth at the knees.

'Don't worry, I wasn't in your room. Your mother hunted them out from the rag basket, I think you were fourteen the last time they fit you.'

They wouldn't fit him now. He was such a weed when she saw him last... when was it, '16, '17? She barely recognised him at the station; assumed it must have been Fred Jr, which was utterly illogical when Fred Jr was now blind. Then he turned around, and it was the same old sandy haired, brown eyed Jack. But Jack with a square jaw and close shaved whiskers on his top lip. He has what her mother calls a friendly face, which is an Anne-ish way of saying not at all handsome but charming in its own way. Dido can't see much charm in it this morning, and removes her feet from the dashboard after he sends another glance her way.

'Those boots aren't mine,' he says, gruffly. 'I s'pose you bought them specially.'

Dido regards the stiff black boots that are laced around her ankle. They are newly purchased from Lawsons and look it.

'You know, I came back from France with boots almost identical to these, but I left them at Alderley. I don't know what I was thinking, really, coming here in the middle of the June planting with no sturdy shoes.'

'Probably what you always think; that fields are for lying in not working on.'

Dido tucks herself onto the canvas bench seat and wraps her arms around her knees. Her eyes never leave the view of the road revealing itself though a silvery mist.

'Just because _you_ haven't changed, doesn't mean _I_ haven't.'

There's nothing Jack can say to that, nothing has or ever will change for him. He grips the steering wheel till his knuckles go white and stares out ahead. The rising sun devours the mist and floods the cab with sharp, clean light.

'Here-' Jack says, leaning over to Dido's side.

He flips down a thin piece of wood he has hinged to the ceiling then does the same for himself.

'Jack, that's _genius_ ,' Dido exclaims, her sulk forgotten. 'Is this your invention? I would have killed for something like this at Courcelette. We had to drive eastward every morning and west every afternoon. It was murder on the eyes-'

Jack blinks hard at her choice of words; thinks of his brother.

'What was it like -over there?'

Dido shifts herself against her door and watches the wind twitch the collar of Jack's checked shirt as his elbow juts out of the window. Not one other person has asked her this question. She never talked about the war with Will, because he was there, and because whenever they talked it was always about who they wanted to be, not who they were. Everyone else, Mamma, Papa, her chums, her aunt, assume she won't want to talk about it. No one knows how much she misses her old life. The urgency, the sense of purpose, the bonds she formed with the other girls.

'Marielle Hubert! Now Jack, if you think _I'm_ spoiled, Merry-Hell made me look like workhouse rat. In the winter she used to wear a full length silver fox fur _over_ her uniform, and in the summer, three inch heels. But, what a driver! She had this sixth sense about which routes were no go and which were clear. I remember one time, she infuriated a very high ranking Officer, a real dish he was too, by refusing to follow a supply convoy down a lane. We ended up taking a five or six mile detour -Colonel Hartnett was _ropeable._ But he always requested her after that. The lane was obliterated by mortar fire. Have you ever seen a cow blown to pieces?'

'Can't say that I have.'

'We drove the Officers about, mostly, sometimes medical sorts, popped into the dressing station, that sort of thing. We weren't _really_ Ambulance, more chauffeurs. There was Shylock, Merry-Hell, Bolly and Jolly, Tulip, Cheesecake,' her grey eyes shining as she recounts them all, 'and Tash -that was me.'

'Named for your thick handlebar moustache, no doubt.'

'Named for these,' Dido says, shuffling closer to tug on Jack's nose, which is as freckled as her own.

He bats her away and laughs.

'Who came up with that?' he asks.

'Aunt Aline,' Dido says, grumpily. 'This was before I began my work with the Red Cross, but the name sort of stuck. She was always mocking me because I refused to put on the ghastly hats they made us wear at the Lyceum, and became 'quite brown and coarse-' the last words were uttered with a cold, clipped accent.

Jack bends forward and works his fingernail over a mark on the windscreen which he knows is on the other side of the glass. Long shadows flicker over the truck as the hedgerows give way to warehouses and sheds. Between them are glimpses of sea, gold with morning.

'I don't know why you went to that school,' he says, quietly.

'I'm making up for it now, aren't I?'

He has to admit that she is. She's been up before the sun most days, but avoids the kitchen, preferring to collect the eggs or bring in the goats for milking. Then there was the day she followed Jack with a sack of horseshoe nails when he went up to the far field to mend 400 yards of fence; the day she spent dropping potato sets in the fresh furrowed earth -and the day after when she lay in a darkened room with cloths soaked with camomile tea to relieve her sunburned neck.

On Friday Jack had to go to Charlottetown to fetch an order of clover seed for Lone Willow and his sister's place. Dido put down her fork and announced to the Wrights that she would be going, too.

'It's not just larking about town, it means heavy lifting down at the harbour. Four dozen sacks-' Jack told her, between mouthfuls of butter beans.

'What's their weight?' Dido, asked him. She was thinking about Major Rawley, how it took three of them to pull him out of the car and up the stairs to the chateau. He must have been close to two hundred pounds. 'I could manage forty-'

'I doubt that, Missy,' Fred cut in, 'You'll be tuckered out after one, and Jack won't have all day-'

'He's got to be back by midday, the last of the lambs are due any day now and the ewes still need... attending to,' Delia said.

She meant crotching, but no daughter of Diana was going to utter that word at the dinner table.

'Any help's better than no help-' Jack and Dido said together, then laughed and linked pinkies over the chicken carcass.

Delia scraped her chair back, loudly, and stood up.

'You can give me a hand then, Dido, dear. Go and ask your mother if she's wanting dessert.'

Anne did not. She was standing in the hall, the cord of the telephone stretched to its limit as she leaned against the open front door. Dido thought they should place a chair and a desk there, too. This time it was the Charlottetown Review, wanting an interview with renowned author, A. Shirley-Gardner. Gardner was a late addition, and usually omitted when anyone mentions her books -much to Royal's annoyance.

Dido is treating Jack to a well earned drink at the Soda fountain, sitting in the window on black leather stools, when she sees her mother exiting the post office across the street, a thin parcel in her hand. Going by the shape there's only one thing it can be.

A manuscript, thinks Dido, glumly, as Jack sucks up the last of his licorice soda.

'That's your ma, isn't it?' he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 'We should go after her, ask if she wants a ride home with us. Save her the trouble of a train.'

He leaps off his seat and heads toward the door; Dido yanks hard on his shirt-tail.

'There's no point. Mamma's here all day- she may even stay the night. Some book thing-' she says.

'It's alright with me if you want to stay too-'

'In this get-up?'

Jack allows himself another look. She's not only wearing his old trousers but one of his belts, it looks to be wrapped round her twice.

'You can give me a hand with the ewes then,' he says, poking out a deep green tongue.

They cross Main Street, Jack's calloused hand hovering an inch from Dido's waist. Anne stops to search for her watch and catches sight of two youths skipping across the road; the way the bigger of the two shepherds the little one, protectively. She smiles to herself and thinks perhaps it's time for the stork to deliver another little Pinecone to the Pinecone family, and is still deliberating on a name for the newest arrival when the journalist from the Review is finishing up.

She pours herself another cup of coffee from the smart silver pot. This is not the time to become complacent, the last few minutes of an interview are always the most fraught. After some fawning chitchat and a series of harmless questions her reserve should have given way by now. She should be feeling flattered, her thoughts drifting to her next appointment. It's then that they strike.

She hides a grim smile behind her cup as her husband's name is finally mentioned.

'He's currently abroad. Family business. In France,' she says, lightly, reaching for her gloves.

'No word from him -as to the identity of the Life Book author?'

'No, Mr Hospodar. Not now, not ever. He gave Mr Ford his word and isn't likely to break that promise.'

'I must say, I am surprised given the talks... _in France-'_

Anne becomes very still. She looks up from a pearl fastening with a mild, almost blank expression.

'About the Life Book being optioned,' he continues, smoothly. 'The bidding war- between the French and the Americans- to make Mr Ford's book into a film?'

Anne's eyes dart to the large envelope the size of a screenplay, a contract, a manuscript, and dotted in French stamps. She thinks about tucking it under the table, but there would be little point. Mr Hospodar would have made note of it the moment he arrived. She stands up and offers him her hand.

'That is a matter between Mr Ford and the producers, there's really nothing I can add. Unless you wanted to help me dream up a name for a Pinecone child?'

The man shrinks back and pretends to laugh, and Anne knows that the article in tomorrow's Review is not going to be about where she got the idea to make trees talk, or even her unpopular campaign to save a corner of ancient forest near Grafton. If she doesn't open tomorrow's paper and read, 'Mystery Book to Mystery Movie, Famous Author Tells All' then Mr Hospodar hasn't done his job. She almost wants to leave the envelope on the table, hide behind the potted palm and watch it being torn open, only to find... probably the draft of some second rate novel from one of Royal's chums.

She is sitting in a small park across from her old teacher's college when she opens it. Inside, as expected, is a typed manuscript, and a ten page letter from her husband. She reads this first, skimming over it from habit, trying to gauge his mood. A melancholy Roy will use words like tragic, disgraceful, insupportable, vile, and will require her to respond directly, if not by telephone then by telegraph. The post is reserved for Roy at his most content. But this letter attests to far more than that. By the time she has read the phrase 'unsurpassed opportunity' for the third time her panicked gaze falls upon the manuscript. She picks it up as though it might bite, and is reading the title when a shadow falls over her.

'Mrs Gardner, we meet again.'

Anne looks up, unseeing, the image of the white page blotting out his face.

'Are you unwell?' he says.

'I- I thought you were in Vancouver-' Anne stammers, cramming the manuscript back into the envelope.

If she had said anything else Gilbert might have apologised for disturbing her and left. But her greeting is so unexpected he blurts out,

'I was. Who told you that?'

'Will,' Anne mutters, 'Will Blythe.'

'Yes, I'm familiar with the chap,' Gilbert says, sitting beside her.

The smile he gives her isn't returned.

'Anne, you really look unwell. Can I get you some water, find a cooler place to sit?'

She stands up, abruptly. His hand is on hers before she knows her legs are not going to support her. There is a moment, long felt and short lived, then she drops onto the bench and lowers her head.

'It appears you're right. Now that I think on it, I've had little but coffee all day.'

If she had looked up she would have seen hazel eyes soft with sympathy. He knows the sort of day she is describing, one that requires an unrelenting focus. Nothing like the life he imagined for Anne Shirley, nor the one he wanted to give her.

'We make a fine pair, I skipped lunch myself- looking for a wedding gift,' he says, sheepishly.

They stop by a restaurant. Automobiles and lorries throw dust onto the walkway, a smell of coal and smoked fish flavours the air. Gilbert studies the menu pasted on the window. Anne peers inside to another room with fine silver coffee pots and sad looking palms. She cannot face it. She cannot sit across from Gilbert and take tea and cake and talk about work. As if he knows what she is thinking he asks if they might walk further. The next restaurant is popular with the Charlottetown matrons. Anne envisages a gaggle of them crowding round her table in hopes of meeting 'their favouite lady author', and is about to summon some excuse when Gilbert gently tugs her arm.

'Are we too old for picnics?'

She looks over the road to where two young girls are packing away their stall. They buy bags of cherries and lumps of cheese and a hunk of crusty bread. Anne lays it all under the elderberry that stands in the neat clipped green of Queens College. Gilbert has gone for something to drink, and comes back with bottles of gingerale.

'I'd prefer a nice burgundy, but I risk arrest if I go about asking for that.'

'Or worse, a lecture from the Temperance Society-' Anne says.

She attempts to suppress a very intemperate laugh and quickly gives in. The sound goes through Gilbert the way air does when Will takes him flying. He removes his jacket and lies on the grass. The sky is quilted with purple clouds and the scent of the tree is musky and sweet.

'And hand in hand with night we come, back to the light and the hearth of home-' he says, softly.

A cherry stone shoots from his lips and he catches it in his hand.

'You know the Life Book?' Anne says, lightly.

'Name me a Canadian who doesn't and I'll show you someone poorer for it.'

'That's... quite the compliment.'

Gilbert rolls onto his stomach and picks at a dandelion leaf.

'It won't shock you, I think, if I tell you I consider your husband and I as different as two men can be. But there's one thing I shall always envy him, his connection to Owen Ford.'

If Anne is pierced by these words she doesn't show it.

'You're more generous than I am. To write one book and disappear, it shows a deplorable lack of imagination, don't you think? Oh-' she scrambles to her feet and shakes out her skirt, raining breadcrumbs on Gilbert's head. 'I have a book reading at eight -at the Library-'

'Not just any library, Anne, _your_ library.'

'Gil, I'm serious. What time is it, I can't see in this light -oh.. I must have left my watch at the hotel-'

Gilbert sits up and calmly takes out a pair of tortoise-shell glasses from his jacket pocket, and slips them on.

'I make it two minutes past,' he says, looking at his pocket watch. 'Oh dear, Mrs Gardner.'

'What am I going to do, it's a half hour walk to the Morgan Street and I still have to get my notes-'

'These aren't them?' Gilbert asks her, holding up the envelope.

'No -no, that shouldn't even be here-' she says, crossly, attempting to wrap the remainder of the meal in the cheese cloth.

'Anne stop,' Gilbert says, and pulls the heel of bread from her hands. 'I cannot believe I am sitting in the presence of greatness and watching her fall to pieces over the Charlottetown Ladies Literary Society.'

'How do you know about that?'

'I saw the posters. And do you know what I thought when I saw them? Poor Anne, that's what I thought. When was the last time you broke the rules?' Her face gives him the answer even if she will not. 'Let me phone them, say you've been delayed-'

'Lie to them, you mean-'

'It isn't a lie, you have been delayed. We can walk back to your hotel and use their telephone. I'll make your apologies, I'll even offer to reschedule -if you insist.'

'And then?'

'Then, Mrs Gardner,' he says, removing his glasses, 'you and I will see how many rules we can break.'

 **...**

 ** _*poetry fragment from On the Hills by L.M. Montgomery  
_**

 ** _Fun fact! Anne of Green Gables was made into a film in 1919_**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter nine**_

In the small hours Gilbert will ask himself if he had wanted to make her angry. And when he stares up at the ceiling and pictures the sheer panels of lace on her blouse, the way she squared her shoulders and narrowed her eyes, he hardly knows if it's because he is trying to piece together what happened or because he is looking for any reason to think of her.

It's as though no time has passed at all. He could be lying in his bed recalling her smashing her slate, dripping wet by at the pond, alone in the orchard, walking away at Convocation...

Tonight she had stood over him while he knelt on the grass and shook breadcrumbs from his hair.

The boy he used to be would have remained on his knees but he knows better now.

'What- no, I wasn't mocking-' he says, scrambling to his feet.

He is struck by how tall she is. She drops her chin and glares.

'It sounds like you are,' Anne says, plucking the bread end from his hands and throwing it to the birds. 'As pitiful as it seems it you, Gilbert, that's my life you're laughing about-'

'Steady on, Anne -I'm not laughing-'

She leaves him with his mouth open and a familiar toss of her red hair, and he falls to his knees again in search of his glasses, knowing every second he takes to find them is another yard he will have to make up.

They are under the street lights that mark the drive to the Queens Main Building when he catches her. Her arms are crossed so tightly the panels on her blouse look about to come unstitched.

'Apology accepted,' she says, coolly. 'Now if you'll be so kind as to walk me to my hotel.'

Gilbert plants his hands on his hips and says in a very deliberate manner, no.

'No?'

'Nope-' he says, shaking his head as though she didn't know what nope meant.

Anne turns on her heel and struts up the driveway. If memory serves there is a narrow alley behind the tennis courts; she could be at the hotel in twenty minutes instead of half an hour.

'I'm not chasing you, anymore,' Gilbert calls to her. 'And by the way the lane you're looking for -and the tennis court, they've been dug up and planted with beets.'

Anne marches back, her arms still crossed.

'You were at Queens today?'

'I wanted to see the new science hall. You're not the only one to have a building named after them, you know.'

She only just stops herself stamping her foot.

'Everything is a joke to you.'

Gilbert laughs. Not the good natured chuckle he is loved for, this one is bitter and stings Anne into silence.

She stares at the ground. There are stunted shadows under their feet and longer, paler ones that fall into each other. Gilbert's moves as he takes off his hat and pinches the crown the way he did at the rotunda. Slowly, Anne lifts her eyes and studies his hands. A few dark hairs stray from his cuff and his veins are more pronounced. His nails are pink and neatly trimmed; his fingers long and fine. She wonders how they would look when they are cupping a breast, stroking a thigh...

'-never meant to make sport of your accomplishments-' he is saying.

Anne summons her most schoolmarmish response.

'You _knew_ I was going to be late, you admitted as much when you said you'd seen those posters. I had a prior engagement and you neglected to remind me of it.'

This is easily deniable, he can say he forgot just as she did, she can hardly rebuke him for that. Instead a terrible truth comes from his mouth, one he never saw himself admitting.

'So what if I did, I was enjoying your company. I thought you were enjoying mine-'

A flush rises up Anne's neck and is about to blot her cheeks.

'I was -I am -I do,' she stammers. 'If I made you feel unwelcome then I apologise.'

'Anne,' he says, smiling at her, 'I accepted your apology the moment you came back to me.'

They walk on in silence, letting all the meaning of that last sentence work into them.

Low branches of juniper throw spears across their path. Anne moves closer to Gilbert, who offers his arm, absently. He is remembering all the times she walked away. And so is she. Or she was, now Anne has followed another thought and pursued it so thoroughly she might be talking to herself.

'It's so much easier for men.'

'Men being me, I take it?'

'Would you allow one of _your_ colleagues to miss his appointment?' she asks him.

'How about my own son?'

'Will?' Anne says, frowning. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean the reason I spotted your poster is because I was looking for these.'

Gilbert reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out fliers, tens of them, each one folded around the other. Anne takes one and reads it aloud.

'Eddie Falcon versus Mike 'the Mistral' Mulcahy? Ten rounds-' she reads, mystified.

'The smaller print, underneath.'

'Dan 'the Hammer' Reese versus Billy 'the Mutineer' Blythe. Four rounds... That's -that's Will!'

'That's Will,' Gilbert says, grimly. 'I saw the first poster at the station and I've been tearing them off walls and windows all day.'

Anne attempts to hide a smile.

'Oh dear, Dr Blythe.'

'You don't seem surprised.'

'I take it Will never told you that he boxed?'

'I knew that he used to. I saw him, or I should say I _caught_ him, over in France. There was an opportunity to visit when I was in England last autumn. We were developing a new tranfusion method -trialing it in the field hospitals at the Somme. And it worked, Anne, it worked.'

She hasn't heard him sound this happy since he thought of the idea to have a picnic.

'I know, I read all about it-'

Anne feels a lightness when she says this. The last time she saw him she had been so preoccupied, anxious not to reveal how much she knew about his life. It seems ridiculous now; why shouldn't she be interested when he was one of her oldest friends?

'I always wondered why you decided to pursue that line of study.'

'I don't know,' he muses, 'nothing like it had ever been done before. Kat used to say I was obsessed by the new-'

'Why did you two marry? How did that happen...' and then, so quietly she half hopes he cannot make her out, 'I always thought you were going to marry Christine-'

'Sorry Anne, did you say Christine? Christine Stuart? Whatever made you think that? Why on earth would I marry Christine when I was in love with you? Christine Stuart. I haven't thought of her in years. We were chums once, nothing more. As I remember she was engaged, I don't remember who the fellow was, or even if they married. We lost touch when I went to the Glen... have I told you this?'

Anne makes a small nod.

'I had an interesting case there and sought advice from a specialist in Montreal. It was through him that I met Kat. I suppose you brought us together in a way. We spotted your book, one of the Tree Folk series, in a shop window, and discovered we both knew you. I think she warmed to me then, I certainly warmed to her. She used to have this almost elfish expression whenever she mentioned you.'

'Why, _why_ did we lose touch? It feels _wrong_. It's always felt wrong, like a hurt that won't heal no matter how I bind it. Not here,' she murmurs, pointing to her palm, 'but here.'

Her hand rests upon her blouse.

'Don't feel badly, Anne, Katherine spent most of her life pushing people away-'

'I wasn't speaking of your wife.'

His eyes are drawn her third finger. He thinks of an old pearl ring his mother gave him when she was days from dying. Anne wears a yellow sapphire the size of a cherry stone. It gleams on her hand like a diamond sunburst.

'Are you really asking me this?' Gilbert says at last. 'I'm sorry, I don't know what you expect me to say...'

His voice catches, Anne tries to touch his face and he knocks her hand away.

'I nearly lost my life that summer- and I never saw you, not once-'

'I tried to see you, Gil, but your mother refused- I didn't feel I had the right-'

'I _needed_ you _.'_

'I didn't know-'

'Well... there's your answer,' he says, blankly.

He links arms with her again because he is a gentleman, and quickens his pace because he is a Blythe. By the time they reach the blue geranium pots that flank the hotel entrance Anne is almost jogging.

The bulbs that stud the open sign flicker and hum, moving shadows left and right. Gilbert pulls the door open and nods his goodnight. When it's clear Anne isn't going anywhere he lets it swing shut. For a moment she believes he is going to walk away. Instead he paces side to side, grinding his shoes against the unswept walkway as though sound could take the place of words.

He wants out, longs to leave, and offers up a white flag.

'There's no point discussing this, surely. It all worked out for the best-'

'Whose best?' Anne counters, 'Will's best -Dido's?'

Gilbert looks up so sharply she almost flinches.

'You don't mean you _wanted_ our children to follow through with their half-baked marriage plan? Will has it that you practically chased him off the property-'

'It wasn't like that,' Anne says, forgetting to lower her voice. 'I'm very fond of your son -I can scarcely believe that Dido agreed to be be parted from him for the summer.'

'I can believe it,' Gilbert mutters.

'Mrs Gardner -ooh Mrs Gardner! At last!'

A woman's head pokes out from the hotel entrance, her nose and cheeks are scarlet, her eyes shiny with electric light.

Anne turns, briskly, to help with the door.

'Oh, thank you, dear, I've been in and out these heavy doors half a dozen times this evening, hunting for you. The phone hasn't stopped all night!'

'I am sorry Edith, what a bother that must have been,' Anne says, her professional demeanor slipping neatly into place. 'The Charlottetown Ladies Literary Society, I expect.'

'No?' says Edith, giving that lovely Mrs Gardner a curious look.

The bell trills again and she ducks inside.

'That'll be him, no doubt. Come in dearie, quick now, it's long distance -from _France!_ '

'Royal?' Anne utters.

A cold feeling creeps into her. She glances at Gilbert's hands, the path, even lifts her foot.

'Oh, Gilbert, _no_ -'

'Ah. We've left that envelope behind.'

Anne darts into the hotel reception, Edith is behind her desk chatting with the telephone operator.

'You can put him through,' she says, then holds her hand over the receiver and whispers to Anne, dramatically. 'She's putting him through, Mrs Gardner-'

'No!' says Anne, lurching over the lumpy carpet. 'I -I'm not disposed to receive a call at the moment. Please inform the operator that Mr Gardner should contact me tomorrow.'

Edith relays the message, before adding, 'Judy says it _is_ tomorrow over there -I s'pose you mean _our_ tomorrow... Ooh, it's Mr Gardner- right now- on the line- _right now_ \- from France!'

Gilbert is looking at his watch for the tenth time when Anne reappears. He is reminded of the day she was made to sit with him as punishment.

'I wasn't sure if I should stay or not- whether you wanted help to find that envelope.'

Anne nods as though it hurt her to do so. He sees she's been crying. Her face is unmarred, her eyes are clear, still he knows, and kicks at a small rock wishing it was Gardner's sizeable rump.

When they arrive at the park he has her remain in the back of the cab while he scans the dark grounds for the envelope. It's exactly where she left it, near a wreath of sleeping dandelions.

She places it into the leather satchel she brought with her.

'I don't want to go back to the hotel,' she says.

Gilbert tucks in beside her and taps the driver's shoulder.

'The library then, it's not quite nine. I'll go in first and beg their forgiveness-'

He doesn't dare hope for a smile, but she does. More, her hatless head leans on his shoulder. He turns his face towards her, each inch feeling like a mile, and slowly breathes her in. She still rinses her hair with rosemary.

'You'd better make it on bended knee, Gil, the old dears would like that.'

'I thought that was how you liked me,' he says, evenly.

Anne tilts her chin upward, her nose brushing his cheek.

The movement of the car sways them gently and when they pass the streetlights she is light and dark and light and dark and light...

'I like you all ways,' she says.

 **...**

 **Thank you for reading and for all your comments...**

 **Why yes, Rose, prefer Jack all you like!**

 **A hand hovering at Dido's waist? What could that possibly mean ;o)**

 **Hope I cleared the timeline probs for you, Wishwars**

 **The glasses, J, the glasses! I was all Gilbert keep those on! (swoon)**

 **Alinya, you gotta know Anne has been a drag to write about, but gradually I'm unravelling her**

 **Kim, sadly it's is not a knack, it's rewriting a sentence over and over till I look up and find it's two in the morning #saddo**

 **Cynthia, gorgeous comment on the narrator, thank you!**

 **Thanks Kat, I am trying to write a page turner so this makes me feel good**

 **Sunny Girl, I've been trying to ration my Anne and Gilbert interaction, Lucy Maud style**

 **Catiegirl, see my comment to J**

 **Julie, I'm sorry for lobbing that epic sized PM at you when you have all those papers to grade**

 **Rebecca, I'm looking forward to you reading through this scene, you're like my very own beta reader :o)**

 **Especial thanks to PelirrojaBiu. If you hadn't said in your review how Anne reminded you of a child I wouldn't have considered writing the scene between Anne and Gilbert this way. I hated the idea that Anne could be perceived as passive, and I realised that I had to right this.**

 **All your criticisms are like gold dust to me. Thank you to the moon and back! I have this story vaguely sketched out now and can tell you that a scene with Will and Dido is next. And after that it's Delia's wedding.**

 **Love, Katherine**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter ten**_

The last week of July is a frantic one for the Wright clan. Lone Willow has had inches scrubbed from it and bristles under Diana's decree that not one boot is to touch the floor between now and Saturday. Fred's wife, Mabel, has spent her days eking out their sugar stores, conjuring the sorts of sweets and sauces that haven't been tasted since 1914. And Delia still has to finish her daughters' dresses; Jean has decided she wants roses in her smocking like Rose's; Rose, who takes after her grandmother, needs her dress taken out; and Cora has declared that smocked dresses are babyish and wants something more grown up.

'Just because we are to be Mama's bridesmaids doesn't mean we should all have to dress alike,' she grumbles.

'Those are too big,' Dido says to her, picking her beans from the bucket. 'Look at them bulging like caterpillars. We want the young, tender ones-'

'I'm sick of beans!' Cora fumes.

She tosses them over her shoulder, and is immediately pelted by her sisters who sit further down the row.

Warm soil and good rain have meant this year's crop is twice what it usually is, and it all wants picking at the same time. It's been four full days of shuffling between Lone Willow, Elmwood and Delia's place; four full days on their knees in the hottest days of July.

Jack lends a hand when he can, but there's always some other work that needs him. Today he asked two of the Mayhew boys to help out -much to Cora's disgust. Word is they smoke _and_ gamble _and_ frequent the illegal distillery in the woods. Christy Mayhew only has one arm. He showed the stump to Dido at luncheon yesterday. And Dido _looked_ , she even _touched_ it, which surely isn't proper. She used to be so stylish and ladylike, now she would rather read Farmer's Friend than movie magazines.

'Do you want a wet down, old thing?' Dido asks her, taking the cloth from a basin of water and sluicing it down her neck.

'How about a tea break?' asks Rose.

Dido peers up at the sky. She generally likes them to take tea when the sun is touching the tallest oak, but today seems like a good day to bend the rules. Cora looks ready to go on strike, and is about to threaten a mutiny when she discovers there is yet more cheese in their sandwiches instead of the anticipated strawberry preserves.

'But Grandy _promised-_ '

'Your grandmother gave it to Aunty Mabel for-'

'Let me guess. The _wedding_.'

Dido passes the lunch basket to the younger girls and asks them to take it to the Mayhew boys.

'What's wrong, Cora? It can't just be the beans, you've picked in hotter weather than this. And your bridesmaid's dress is darling, when I saw it last evening I wished your clever mama might run one up for me.'

'Well, that just shows what horrid taste you've got. You're always wearing Uncle Jack's trousers!'

Cora's lip wobbles and her face goes even pinker, which Rose and Jean duly note the moment they return.

'Cora's in a tizz because we have to go to a different school when Mama marries Mr Meredith-'

'She thinks Vera Booth is going to drop her and be bosom friends with Sue-Ann Lowrie instead-'

'I do _not!_ ' Cora fumes.

She tosses her sandwich at her sisters and scuttles up to the house.

Dido doesn't follow her, nor does she insist it of Jean and Rose. An eight year old and a nine year old are not only years but leagues away from understanding the heart of an eleven year old girl. They will only say they don't know what they are apologising for, when they were merely telling the truth. Let Cora sulk in the cool of the house, perhaps later the two of them might go for a moonlight swim.

She is thinking about braving the Lake of Shining Waters as she drives the Mayhews back to Spencervale. Or she would if they would stop gabbing about the big fight in Charlottetown that night.

Christy and Rob are Eddie Falcon fans, and have money riding on him to knock out Mike the Mistral before the sixth round. The warm up match between that Glen thug and some Yankee boy looks just as promising. Dan Reese is a dirty cheat and always odds on favourite. No one's heard of Billy Blythe, if he takes Reese out there could be a handy profit to be made.

Dido listens in carefully, teasing out information just as she did when she drove for the Officers in the war.

'Sounds like you're putting your wages to good use tonight,' she says.

Rob nods, approvingly. So many of these Avonlea girls get sniffy about a little wager. It's only a bit of fun. And might be even more fun if he can convince that hotsy-totsy Gardner gal to accompany him.

'Gee, that does sound tempting- but I'm afraid I couldn't make it till later. Why don't you write down the address, Rob, and perhaps I'll see you there.'

Christy elbows his brother as he scribbles it down on the back of a torn seed packet. Dido isn't sure if he has written Vearner's or Learner's Avenue, not that it matters, Jack will muddle it out.

She marches into Lone Willow and is quickly marched back out again.

'My _floor!_ ' Diana shrieks, glaring at Dido. 'Get those mucky boots off, you wretch!'

'I'm sorry, Aunty, I need to see Jack, it's urgent-'

'Laws! There hasn't been an _accident_ has there?'

'No, no-' says Dido, impatiently. These mothers, always assuming something's gone wrong. 'I have to get to Charlottetown.'

Diana's hands leave her face and take their place on her well padded hips.

'And why, may I ask, do you want to go to Charlottetown at this time of day?'

'That's between me and Jack.'

Diana goes as pink as her grandaughters. Perhaps Delia is right? Not that Dido isn't a darling; Fred thinks the war's been the making of her, she's no longer another mouth to feed she's a proper helping hand. But it can't last forever. This is just another one of her fancies, like that shack she built in the cherry tree. By the time it was finished so were all the blossoms; she never even spent one night in it. Now she was playing at farmer's wife and had Jack playing along with her. Except Delia seems to think her little brother has forgotten Dido is only pretending.

Diana fishes a rag from her apron and tosses it at the girl.

'And this is between you and the floor, Diana Dorothy. Jack is rehearsing in the front parlour, and I _forbid_ you to interrupt until you've cleaned that hall to my liking!'

It's a good thirty minutes before Jack is ready. When he hears he's being ordered to town he insists on a quick bath and a change of clothes. Dido hadn't considered that, she only thought of getting to Will before the fight began.

As she sits next to Jack on the thirty mile drive she imagines it all out, perfectly. He'll be standing in the ring when he spots her in the crowd, and though they all start jeering he'll go to her, enfold her in his arms and tell her what a fool he's been. And she'll say, 'Forget it darling, I just want you to know that Dan Reese is a stone cold cheat.' And he'll look at her, gratefuly, and say 'Thanks, kid.' Then with this priceless information he'll beat that brute to a pulp. 'I never could have done it without you, Tash!' he'll cry. Then she will cry. And this time when she asks him to make love to her he really will. He'll take her hand and lead her to...

'So are you going to tell me what this is all about?' Jack asks her.

He's feeling conspicuous in his Sunday best and his hair slicked back like Valentino. Dido has tied a faded ribbon round her braid and wears an old fashioned sailor dress. She looks as though she's expecting some not very important people for supper; the kind his mother serves with the second best dinner service. When she turns from the window and looks at him her eyes are dark and dewy. Jack tugs at his celluloid collar.

'I didn't want to tell you until we passed Darlington, because that's over half way and I reasoned you'd be less likely to turn round and go home.'

Jack works his hands over the steering wheel. This is looking less like a promising evening and more like another of Dido's schemes.

'I won't say I will and I won't say I won't,' he says, quietly.

'Oh, Jack, you won't, I know you won't, not when I tell you!'

As soon as she asks if he knows Will Blythe he knows what she is going to say. It doesn't hurt, not really. Dido is just another girl in love with another soldier. And not just any soldier, a flying ace and something of a chum. Jack knows Will Blythe, alright. The fellow destroyed his sled; nearly drowned them both when they went ice fishing. He's handsome, built, smart as a whip, and in a whole heap of trouble. In short Will is everything a woman wants.

Jack allows himself a full minute imagining Will's pretty gold eyes being blackened by Dan Reese's fat fists, before he reaches over and pats Dido's shoulder.

'You did the right thing, Dodo.'

'As soon as I heard the Mayhews I had to do something. They're all laughing, you know, hoping this so called Yankee gets whipped. Will has no idea the match is rigged. Regardless of what a scoundrel he's been, he doesn't deserve that. Oh, Jack, I knew I could count on you.'

'Don't count on me too hard, I haven't a clue how we'll manage to stop them, short of setting the place alight.'

It might come to that. Though Jack can't claim to know Will as well as Dido does, he can't imagine him forfeiting the match just because she fears for his safety. He remembers all Will's bloody noses and broken wrists; danger merely spurred him on.

Whatever plan Jack conceived, whatever rescue Dido dreamed, it all came to nothing. Will was knocked out in the first round.

The brother of the hotel check-in girl directs them to the hospital Will's father has taken him to. A nurse asks how it is that Dido knows the patient, and she tells her tearfully she is his fiancee.

'You don't need me,' says Jack. 'I'll wait for you in the truck.'

He could be speaking another language, all Dido knows is that Will is inside that room and his father is sitting outside it. He has his navy coat over his arm, his hat is in his hands.

'Dr Blythe!' says Dido, breathlessly. 'No- no please don't get up. I'm so happy you're here -well, not happy, of course, I- how is he, can I see him? It's not usual to be admitted just because you were knocked unconscious, is it?'

Despite her insistence Gilbert stands and takes her hand, briefly. Her palms are cold and damp, and her eyes are huge. She seems so much younger than the girl he met in France. Or perhaps he just feels ancient.

'Will broke two ribs, they want to be sure he hasn't punctured a lung -don't worry, Miss Gardner, he hasn't. But I can't tell them that, they're insisting on confirming it for themselves.'

'Two ribs. Why, _why_ did he do this?' she murmurs.

'I was hoping you would tell me-'

'You don't think _I_ \- I never wanted him to box, Dr Blythe, just like I never wanted him to fly that mission into Germany. But you can't tell Will, _no one_ can-'

'He may listen to you now,' Gilbert says.

He certainly won't listen to his father, or even be straight with him. Will's squadron was smarter than he let on; when they gave him the name Fletcher Christian it had nothing to do with Captain Bligh. Gilbert doesn't take this too hard, however, it's highly probable that Anne has no clue where her daughter is either.

Dido's eyes glance up at the exit sign.

'I -I wouldn't want to disturb him...'

Gilberts smiles at her and opens the door to the ward.

'You're likely the only thing that will stop him feeling sorry for himself.'

Another nurse appears; her hair coiled at her nape like new rope, her arms full of sheets, looking as though she wants to discuss her patient. Whether it's the sight of her or the sense of Dr Blythe's words, Dido finds herself at the foot of Will's bed. Out of habit she glances over his notes.

'Come to give me the all clear, have you?' Will asks her.

He is perched on a bare mattress, endeavouring to put on his shirt.

'I've come to give you what for!'

She's expecting him to say, go on then, give me your best shot. And there'll be that glint in his eyes and he'll open his arms and she'll fly into them.

Will lowers his head, his damp, brown hair falls over his face. 'Of course, you have,' he mutters.

His words almost wind her, because she has just seen herself as Will sees her. Not as a heroine come to his rescue. As someone he expects will hurt him.

She stands there, stupidly, while a man in the next bed starts coughing and another snores. Her first thought, strangely, is of Jack sitting in the dark in his best shirt, hungry and tired. But this is swiftly overtaken by the boy in front of her who trying to get his arm through his sleeve without groaning.

'Please let me help, Will, I want to help, I'm good at it,' Dido says, placing one knee on the bed and working his hand through a cuff.

He grasps her hand, eagerly. She gingerly settles against his chest and he reaches for her thick, black braid and the ribbon tied to the end of it. Will bought it for her in Paris and had a seamtress embroider a line from the Life Book over the sky blue silk.

 _Behind us are the homes we love_

 _And hearts that are fond and true,_

 _And before us beckons a strong young day_

 _On leagues of glorious blue._

They sit like this till the man across from them starts coughing again. Dido moves from the bed and begins buttoning Will's shirt. His voice is husky and thick when he speaks; the same words over and over.

'I can't believe you came, Tash, I can't believe you're here...'

And she looks up at him and shakes her head.

'Of course I'm here, you lummox. You're never getting rid of me.'

 **...**

 *** poetry fragment from To the Fishing Ground by L.M. Montgomery**

 **I'm sorry the scene between Dido and Will wasn't longer, but you'll see more of them in the next chapter, when Anne-Cordelia marries Jerry Meredith.**

 **Thank you once again for your comments and faves! A story about Anne NOT marrying Gilbert being faved! NO WAY!**

 **Yes, Rebecca, Dan Reese from the Glen. The one that Walter smacked down in Rainbow Valley. I was hoping someone would notice. Thank you! I loved your comment about Anne being weighed down by the name Gardner, that was gorgeous.**

 **Spoiler alert Vicky, I am not planning to murder Royal. But I like your ideas, maybe when A Summer at Green Gables is complete you can write one. Has anyone ever done an Anne Murder Mystery?**

 **Thanks for reminding me that Will is complicated, LixDexic, because he is. I have been trying to figure him out, then I read your comment and realised I don't have to.**

 **Yes, you're right, Alinya, Anne is worn out. I think she is tired of mothering her husband and probably quite liked the idea of Gilbert taking charge -for about five seconds- before she realised she enjoys being cross with him far more.**

 **I'm glad you found it satisfying, J. In an effort to write a page turner I have probably missed out more information than I should have, so this scene was definitely needed. And while I am a full blooded an Anne-grrrrl, I did cheer Gilbert on when he said 'No' to her. That was a fun scene to write!**

 **Pelirroja, you can imagine they got up to whatever you want. I loved your tennis match analogy, perfect! The detail about the hands is something I do. Our hands are used for the most intimate things but they are also on public display. I don't know why but this has always fascinated me. As for your 'child' comment, regardless of what you meant I was grateful, because I found my way back to the old Anne again, and so did she.**

 **I know what you mean about Gilbert's mother, Diana. I was unsure whether I should write that, but I reasoned that as he never received Phil's letter his recovery wouldn't have been so quick, and as far as Mrs Blythe knows Anne is engaged to Roy, so she will be focused on protecting her son. Still, I am super glad you are finding this a fun read!  
**

 **Catie-girl, thank again for your words. I was hoping the subtext in their conversation would be clear, but you can never be sure until someone tells you. That diamond sunburst, ouch!**

 **I love your questions, Kim, because you point out where I have been vague or unclear. I'm afraid this story just lends itself to muddled conversations. But when I try my hand at a YA story (that's the Young Adult genre) in the future I will be as clear and comprehensible as possible. It's going to be about Anne of Avonlea- have a look in my profile page.**

 **Thank you, Kerry, I was particularly proud of that chapter.**

 **Mountainrivergirl, don't feel bad, I don't want Anne and Roy to be together either!  
**

 **...**


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter eleven**_

Mrs Anne-Cordelia Andrews and Mr Gerald Meredith married at sunset in the Lone Willow rose garden on the last day of July. She wore a pale green tea gown dotted with sprigs of lavender and carried more of the same in her trembling hands. Jerry wore them, too, pinned to the lapel of his new brown suit.

'Three flowers for my three little flowers,' he said at supper.

Even Cora beamed at that, and when he finished dancing with his new wife hers were the next hands he sought. Cora had been hoping for a dance, had even practiced a little waltzing step in front of the full length mirror they kept in the sewing room. But after watching her mother and Mr Meredith -no he wasn't Mr Meredith anymore, he was Gerald-dad according to Jean and the name had decided to stick- she had forgotten all the steps. The sight of her proper and cautious Mama kissing the old Carmody schoolmaster was enough to make anyone stop and stare. But afterwards everyone agreed it was Una's music that struck them still.

'It was hope. Sweet, clear hope,' Anne murmured, during a long stroll later that night.

'It was almost unnatural,' Mrs Billy Andrews told anyone who would listen.

'It's love,' says Dido, her face resting on the heel of her palm. 'Will, we're looking at love.'

Will is sitting at a small table, his longing to lie down and take some weight off his ribs equalled only by his wish to spend every moment at Dido's side. Her left hand is in his and he pictures it wearing the old pearl ring his father gave him today. When this night is over and the last dance is done Will plans to take Dido for a walk by the pond and ask for her hand. Ask for it under moonlight, not mortar fire, and be answered with a yes instead of a panicked kiss.

The moment seems years away. Mr Meredith pauses mid step to mop Delia's cheek with his handkerchief, and Will wonders how the Andrews feel to see the woman once married to their boy in the arms of someone else.

The girl seated on the other side of him briefly touches his arm.

'You never took your meds, did you, William, you're clearly in pain.'

Faith Meredith is Jerry's sister and a nurse at Charlottetown Hospital. She was the one who bound Will's chest and stripped his bed when he threw up all over it. The one who examined his injuries and said, 'Let me guess, the fellow you were fighting had Plaster of Paris concealed in his gloves?'

'You're not on duty now, Miss Meredith,' Will says, then seeing her narrow her cat-like eyes, adds, 'besides that stuff makes me feel like a drunkard.'

'Some would say that was preferable to being in agony, but each to their own,' she says.

Not to him but to Dido. The two of them have become swift allies. Faith served as a VAD in the war.

Will pretends to ignore her. 'What was that you said about love, Tash?'

' _There_ , you great pickle, those two-' she says, pointing between Mabel's wedding cake and the children's table.

'Which two? The couple dancing or the couple making the music-'

Will attempts to put his arm around his girl and draws a sharp breath. Faith is having none of it and insists he come with her into the house to have his bindings tightened. He hobbles after her, rolling his eyes while Dido's gaze moves from the dancers to the musicians.

They are up on the porch where Dr Blythe and Uncle Fred shifted the upright piano this morning. Faith's younger sister, a small, dark haired girl called Una, is playing it while Jack turns the pages. She has just finished The Banks of Green Willow, with little idea she has made the bride and a good portion of the wedding guests cry. This is probably due to the fact that Una Meredith is close to tears herself. She promised her big brother that after the first dance and before everyone else is invited onto the little square of lawn, she will play the piece she wrote as her wedding gift to them. That Una is willing to perform her own work in front of strangers says more of her bond with Jerry than the gorgeous music she has written. She has a horror of being the centre of attention, but like most shy people she is also very clever. Weeks ago she posted an arrangement of her music for Jack to learn so that he might accompany her.

When Jack saw it he was close to tears himself. Una had given every delicate and difficult passage to him, Jack Wright; who had never been called to play anything more challenging than The Wind that Shakes the Barley in double time. Dido has heard him practice plenty but only certain bars and always behind closed doors. She sips at her iced tea, nervously, willing him to do well. Then he touches his bow to the strings and draws out that first sonorous note and even the leaves cease their stirring. The wedding guests sit raptly, Dido forgets to breathe and is only reminded when her heart begins to thud in her throat as she watches Jack -her Jack- summon a bittersweet sound from his fiddle.

His eyes never leave Una's, waiting for her every nod as she signals when he is to come in and out of the harmony. It's an intimate conversation, one that Dido cannot accept she is seeing, and she has witnessed countless unseeable things and still had the presence of mind to press down hard on the bleeding, or know what to say to a man as he dies. But this... It's not the tune, it's that there is something inside Jack that knows how to call it forth. It's that he makes himself vulnerable to Una's every gesture. This isn't love, this is trust; that he will serve her music, that she will show him the way. And Dido feels herself journey through it with them till they come to the end and its echo makes a home for itself in her chest.

There is a terrible moment when Jack returns his violin to the top of the piano and invites Una to stand, and they are met with utter silence. Una looks ready to scoot indoors, then Will and Faith appear on the porch steps and rouse the guests from whatever dream they have been in with loud applause.

Soon after Will heads toward Dido, a little more briskly than he left, while Faith goes to her sister. Jack is... Dido can't see where Jack is.

'Dance with me?' Will says to her, holding out his hand.

One of the Andrews clan begins belting out The Barnyard Blues on his cornet. This is a favourite of the young crowd, Merry-Hell and Cheesecake knew all the latest dance steps; Dido can dance the Grizzly Bear, the Frog, the Turkey. She catches Cora's eye, who has given up trying to remember where to put her feet and is being flown around by Jerry, while Delia dances more sedately with Mr Harmon Andrews. Dido and Will can't manage much more. He keeps his hands low on the waist of her pink tulle gown. They manage a sort of one step but are soon sitting down at their little table, bringing a cup to their lips, or a thin slice of cake, whenever they are stuck for something to say.

Una has been pulled from the kitchen and is begged to play again, something for the oldies this time. The men clustered by the punch bowl grind cigars under the heels of their brightly polished shoes and seek out their women. Fred to Diana, Billy to Nettie, Ralph to Dora, Joe to Minnie-May, John Meredith to Rosemary. The Avonlea folk aren't quite sure what to make of that. The minister dancing, worse, _singing,_ in a passable tenor to his handsome, white haired wife.

 _Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low,_

 _And flickering shadows softly come and go_

 _Though the heart be weary, sad the day and long_

 _Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song_

Anne is watching Gilbert who appears to be in the midst of a complex and, going by the hand gestures, esoteric conversation with another of the Meredith brood; the youngest son, Carl. He's off to Redmond in September, Jerry has secured a lecturing position at Queens. And Gilbert. He appears to be working an invisible apparatus. Then he glances over at Anne, and she knows he has been aware of her throughout the entire conversation.

'Am I keeping you, Dr Blythe, did you want to dance?' Carl asks him. 'I would, but this takes some getting used to,' he says, gesturing to the patch over his eye. 'Still bumping into things.'

'That's all the rage now, isn't it?' Gilbert says.

When it's clear Carl has no idea he's referring to the latest dance craze and he changes tack.

'What I mean is, we're all feeling our way these days.'

'We've all got scars, if that's what you mean,' Carl replies, thinking of his father's last sermon. 'Even if they don't show. You know, you should talk with my father. You and he would get along splendid.'

'I mean to, Carl. The moment I met him I thought to myself, now there is a man who belongs to-'

-'the race that knows Joseph!' Carl says with him. 'You've read Owen Ford! I always think there are two kinds of folk in the world, don't you? The race that knows The Life Book and the race that doesn't-'

'What do you think, Mrs Gardner?' Gilbert says to the woman who has been creeping up behind him.

Anne beams and places her hand on his arm.

'I think it would be better for me if half the world read my Tree Folk books!'

'We all did at our house, Mrs Gardner,' Carl says, shyly, 'though admittedly that was a while ago now. I always appreciated that you made all your creatures anatomically correct, even if they were spiders and snails, you never tried to pretty them up or imagine them different.'

'I wouldn't dream of trying to better nature -a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars-'

'You're quoting The Life Book again-' Carl says, laughing.

'Funny how it always comes back to that,' says Gilbert, with another glance at Mrs Gardner.

Later the two of them walk familiar paths, the same ones they lingered on when Diana married Fred. Gilbert had been his groomsman and Anne her bridesmaid. She had worn a pale yellow gown with lace at her throat, and there were flowers in her hair, in a wreath, but he can't quite remember what they were.

Anne wears flowers now, no, just the one, a white rose tucked behind her ear. Her hair is worn loose and it falls round the shoulders of a simple navy dress with sleeves that end at her elbow. She pulls his arm close, touches the crisp white cotton of his shirt and remembers all the things they had left unsaid. He thought she was in love with Royal, she thought he was in love with Christine, and proud fools that they were they would rather shelter in misunderstanding than be struck with the truth. She will not make the same mistake now.

'How long have you known, Gil -about the Life Book?'

'Hmm... since the day it was published -ow! Oh, you mean how long have I known that-' Gilbert peers over his shoulder as though scanning the trees for spies, 'Anne Shirley is the mysterious Owen Ford?'

It feels strange to finally say this to her. His clever look has vanished. There is just the merest trace of that smile in the corner of his mouth, but his eyes have gone quite wide. He knew it instinctively the moment he read the first chapter, and remembers it still. The endless journey across country to Vancouver. The Life Book purchased as something to read should he bore of the paper he was trying to write. Coming to the end of the chapter -no, if he's honest it was coming to the end of the first page, and staring out of his carriage window at a prairie landscape until the sun sank into a thousand mile horizon and he saw his own face in the glass. He blinks hard at the memory, tells her that he thought he was going mad; that she was haunting him in books, now. And set about taking each line of her story apart, trying to prove or disprove that Anne Shirley had written it and no one else.

The book she found in the boat house! The volcanic A's and g's like eights. It was Gilbert's writing, his book, and he had passed it on to Will -or Will had nabbed it.

When she asks Gilbert when it was he knew, her voice is low and raw, because if the Life Book of Captain Jim is anything at all it is a memoir of lost love, of letting go and living with it. His answer starts easily enough. He makes a joke about Persis Leigh, another schoolmaster's bride, and her love of flowery language. Then, of course, there was the tale of Lost Margaret which sounded eerily similar to certain young girl who tried to drown herself like Elaine...

He stops and rubs his eyes.

'I'm sorry, Anne, but when I think of what you wrote -what _you_ wrote, I have to ask you why you spent your life running from it? Allowing your husband- forgive me, but Roy Gardner is a third rate painter without an original thought in his head, and you let him bask in the glory -of _your_ work? I don't understand you-'

He is almost shouting now, the bird above them flaps indignantly before fleeing the beech they stand under.

'You know, as much as I believed that book was yours I used to hope that it wasn't. Because the Anne Shirley I knew, the woman I loved, would never let a man do that.'

'I didn't _let_ him,' is Anne's crisp reply. 'If it wasn't for Roy that confounded book would never have been published. You speak of this _Anne Shirley_ as though she can accomplish miracles-'

The expression on Gilbert's face is one that says, But you _can_.

'No one would touch it, Gil. Not one. Anne Shirley, B.A. Writer of children's stories and plays and poems and columns, yet none could believe I dared write such a thing. I have forty rejection slips. It wasn't until years later when I happened upon Roy in France, on a book tour-'

'You weren't engaged to him-'

'No- I told you before. Why- who told you differently. Not Roy?'

'Actually it was Christine. Their families run in the same circles. She knew Royal's mother was against the marriage and that you were... waiting for him.'

'It wasn't like that at all-' Anne says, she is almost laughing, and yet very close to tears. 'He was the one who suggested I make the The Life Book into a sort of memoir, he would add these sketches and maps and resubmit it under a pseudonym. Whatever you think of my husband, Gil, he knows what sells. I had no idea how successful it would be. Sometimes the lie was such a burden I would beg Royal to let me tell the truth. But he's right. People don't want to know who Owen Ford is, not really. And they certainly don't want to know The Life Book is just an invention of A. Shirley-Gardner.'

Gilbert sits heavily on the rough bench that lies in the heart of the Haunted Wood. Perhaps she's right and it is better not to know. Because he wishes he never knew this about her, that she let that- man- convince her she had so little worth.

Anne sits next to him and lays a hand on his back, under his shirt she can feel his muscles expand and contract as he breathes. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees while moonshadow plays on his face. She longs to trace her finger down the deep line in his cheek; wonders what worlds would have opened if she was the woman who could touch him that way.

'I know what you're thinking-'

'You don't-'

'I was terribly unhappy when I wrote that book, Gil. Even now I have never been able to look at it, hear about it, without recalling how unhappy I was. Roy took that from me and made it into something new. I suppose in a way I was grateful-'

'He made you cry, that night you lost that envelope. Don't deny it, Anne.'

'I don't deny it,' she admits.

She removes her hand from his back and tucks it between her knees.

'Royal wants to sell the The Life Book to a film company in France. There is no way for me to prevent it. It's all in his name, you see. Every penny 'Owen Ford' earns goes directly to him. The papers have often suspected he's the rightful author but they've never been able to prove it. Once he sells the rights, it will be known by all-'

'You can't mean-'

'Oh, I can easily throw doubt upon his claim, but he's my husband. More than that he's Dido's father. I will _never_ do that to her. Still, I can't bear to think of my book being picked apart by strangers - _you_ know how I was about Averil.'

Anne nudges him, then sits tall and breathes deep, preparing to say these next words out loud.

'So I told him he would have to choose. The Life Book... or me.'

As she speaks Gilbert shifts his body towards her, alive to every word. He takes her hand and presses it between his own.

'But that's good, Anne. Whatever your feelings about that book, it belongs to you. In time he'll see-'

He feels her tears on the back of his hand. What he doesn't know is that it's his goodness that has made her cry, because it would never have occured to him to act any other way.

'Gil,' she says, brokenly, 'you misunderstand. Roy chose The Life Book.'

 **...**

 _ *** I was thinking of a specific piece of music when I wrote this. If you'd like a listen look up Passaggio from the album Spheres, that's my Island music. My Kingsport music is Verses from the album The Chopin Project.  
**_

 _ *** The lyrics were from Love's Old Sweet Song (Just a Song at Twilight) 1885.**_

 _ *** The Frog, the Grizzly Bear and the Turkey are Ragtime dances.**_

 _ *** 'a leaf of grass...' from Walt Whitman.**_

 _ *** Persis Leigh features in a story told by Captain Jim in Anne's House of Dreams. As does the phrase 'the race that knows Joseph.'  
**_

 **Cynthia, If I hadn't written this it would have been my exact criticism. All I can say is Anne was thinking the same thing, Gilbert knows she never married Roy yet she never heard from him. Ouch! The Lifebook was Anne's response to this, her way of reaching out to him. I don't have a better answer than that.**

 **Yes, Wishwars, this is very much a story that needs to be read as a whole because of all those damn story threads I keep dropping and picking up again. I'm sorry to do it to you, thanks for sticking with me.**

 **J, I tried to show when Will is first introduced how little he trusts their love; the way he keeps expecting her to leave him. This idea originated with his parents. I think when Gilbert proposed the first time he didn't really trust his relationship with Anne and tried to pin it down with a marriage promise, and Katherine never trusted anyone. Along the way their son has picked this up. But he'll figure it out in the end.  
**

 **Will has definitely grown up with the Life Book, Pelirroja, the way others grow up with Narnia or Harry Potter. Thank you as ever for noticing all the details, you catch onto tiny things like I do, which makes me feel less like a nerdy geek.  
**

 **I am trying to be a better writer. But this story is just dots on a screen without readers, so thank you, Guest. If you long to write then just write, it's as simple and as scary as that. Nothing compares to that feeling when you have finished a story, and you sit back and think, that came out of my head!**

 **No whole days for me, Alinya, just spaces between one job and the next. All my bean info comes from a memory I have of gherkin picking one summer, and half an hour online watching people offering advice on how to grow beans. They were bush beans, the long green types.**

 **Thanks, Rebecca. 'Laws' was supposed to show Diana was freaking out, the way we might say the F word by mistake. But I take your point, and if I can think of a better word I shall change it just for you. Gilbert and Dido's meeting was a brief one, they saw each other for a few minutes when Gilbert went to visit Will in France.  
**

 **I like Dido's daydreams too, Kim. That's me again, I'm afraid. It was falling into the habit of imagining how things were supposed to turn out that clued me into the fact that I should try my hand at writing. Thank you for your recommends. I LOVE Eleanor and Park!  
**


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter twelve**_

'What do you want, Tash?'

Will is lying on the side of his body that isn't purple, on the banks of her Lake of Shining Waters. Dido sits at its edge. She has peeled off her stockings and hitched up her hem to cool her calves and feet. There is a smell of sweet grass, the sound of crickets and surfacing fish; then this lovely girl turning and telling him, 'You.'

He rolls himself up, painfully, 'No -I can do it,' he says when she offers her hand, and begins to untie his laces.

Thick brown hair falls over his eyes as he balls his socks in each shoe, placing them together just so.

'Darling, no one will know if you leave your kit in a muddle.'

Will raises his eyebrows and slips his feet in the pond.

'Shall we get a house by the water, one day. It's our sort of place, isn't it?'

'What, _here?'_ Dido says, kicking water at him. 'You're not thinking of making a home on the Island?'

'No chance,' he answers above Dido's squeals, as a cold spray soaks her pink dress.

It melts on her thighs like sugar in rain and she tucks her wet feet under herself to wring out the gauzy tulle. Her knuckles go white when she hears him say,

'I was thinking about The Soup -where we used to swim.'

The Soup was an enormous water filled crater, a mile from the grounds of de Courcelette. The officer ranks laid claim to it and laid claim to many nurses there, too. Dido preferred to practice her back stroke. She was goaded into races, of course, the idea being Miss Gardner would be the prize at the end. If they managed to best her she would simply submerge herself until they got bored.

That was how she met Will.

He didn't ask for a race, he challenged her to see which of them could hold their breath the longest. They sank to the bottom and stared at each other; the murky water made their eyes look like old coins, and he blew all the air from his lungs. Dido watched with a mix of fascination and fear, overcome by a need to breathe in for him. The first time she found herself in Will's arms she was coughing up water down his back.

The last time she went down to The Soup Will had flown into German territory to seek out the survivors of four aircraft that had been shot down. He had given her a ribbon in lieu of a ring and came back a Captain with a medal for distinguished conduct.

That same day the water went red with the shattered bodies of Merry-Hell and a surgeon from field hospital B. Dido doesn't swim anymore.

'You miss France, don't you, Will?'

'I miss flying,' he says. He feels himself being studied and frowns. 'What?'

She doesn't answer straight away.

'I think you're hoping I'll ask you what _you_ want.'

He shrugs carelessly, with his floppy hair and rolled up trousers he looks twelve not twenty-two.

'Maybe. Maybe I was hoping you'd give me some idea what the hell I'm supposed to do now.'

'Earn oodles of money and keep me in white silk dresses, remember?' Dido says.

She wants to sound playful but the hurt she feels is obvious.

'I'm sorry I said that, Tash. It wasn't anything your mother did, your mother is swell. I was mad at myself when she found me hiding like some kind of thief, and then... I dunno, I sat in the dark and started thinking like one. In the war it didn't matter who I was, but now...'

Dido kisses the scar on his hand.

'You can be a real pill, Will Blythe,' she says. 'I cried buckets for you, you know. Besides, it wouldn't do the least bit of good -scamming my parents, I mean-'

'Why, are the Gardners broke?' Will jokes.

'Well, if we aren't we should be. The money Papa spends, all the while Alderley's falling apart. I suppose that's why he did it...'

She looks at him as if trying to decide whether to say more and then suddenly blurts it out.

'Papa sold the rights to The Life Book, for quite some money, too... they're going to make it into a film-'

'But I thought you said- that is... I understood Mrs Gardner wrote it.'

He reels in the memory of that conversation. They'd had too much wine and too little sleep and were too spooked to believe they might live out the morning. Then the wind changed direction; the mustard gas cloud blew away with all their secrets. In the end he was never sure if Dido remembered she had told him or not.

'Yes, Mamma wrote it.'

Dido presses her lips together, looks down at her wet dress. Moonlight shines on her eyelids where she has spiked her lashes with Vaseline.

She turns to him and smiles.

'Not that she told me, exactly, somehow I just grew up knowing.'

Will's ribs are nipping and he lowers himself on the grass again.

'I can't believe Owen Ford is your mother-'

'Neither can I when you put it like that.'

'What was it like -growing up with her?'

She joins him and stares up at the sky. These are probably the stars Mamma was thinking of when she wrote The Tree Lovers. When Dido studies the constellations she doesn't see pictures, she hears music. A long, lone note like a star shooting over the heavens.

'My mother is an utter brick.'

'I could tell that straight away-'

'You could? That's good. Most people assume she is flighty and frail but she's not like that at all.'

This is more a description of the woman Dido left in 1916 than the woman she came home to. But for the most part it's right. It's her father who needs to be treated with kid gloves; his moods that must be anticipated and worked around. He is sentimental, horribly vain. But he is generous too, to the point of extravagance, and dotes on his women; his mother, his sisters, his daughter, his wife. It's just occured to her that he doesn't have any male friends. Plenty of colleagues, a vast network of hangers-on, but no real chums. 'Royal knows how to recognise genius,' his agent once said. What he didn't say, but what Dido understood, was that her father had no genius of his own, only the means to collect it.

No wonder he needed to sweeten his life with silks and puddings, surely that would make any man bitter. No wonder Mamma loved him. Not many husbands would tolerate her need to be always working. Perhaps none.

'Mamma doesn't know that I know -about the film. I had a letter from Aunt Aline with a note from Papa inside.'

She wraps her arms about her head and looks for Will's expression. He is doing that strange thing injured people do and pressing on his wounds to see how much they hurt.

'Is that a common ruse of the Gardners?' he says, inching himself onto his side.

Dido laughs. 'Actually, it is! I never thought of it as a ruse before, but you're right. What a strange family we are.'

'No stranger than mine.'

'I've been thinking about that,' she says, in that serious way that always makes Will want to kiss her.

He slides his arm down his hip and over his pocket. The ring sits snugly inside and he smiles.

'About how similar we are,' she continues. 'We both have parents from the Island, your mother was orphaned, my mother was orphaned. Your father had a child with someone else and so did mine-'

'Only _my_ father never married her. He wanted to-' Will is quick is add, 'But she was adamant she would never marry again.'

'Good gravy- you never told me that bit. I can't imagine anyone turning down your father. He's divine!'

'As divine as his son?'

At this moment Will looks like a fallen angel who has not quite learned how to be on earth. His chest and his shoulders seem to fight the shirt they are clothed in, and his beautiful face, with cuts across his nose and his full bottom lip, suggest he landed here with a thud.

'If you insist on fishing I suggest you try in there,' she says, pointing to the pond. 'I want to hear more about your sister- to say nothing of her radical mother.'

Will bites his lip, presses on his ribs; the ring.

'My sister -my half sister, really- is Joy. Her mother is Leslie Moore. Dads met her when his uncle retired. He was helping out until they found another doctor. This was at Glen St Mary, do you know it?' Dido nods, urging him on. 'He'd just finished medical school and I s'pose they had a fling -not that he put it that way, of course. Anyway she refused him, I don't know why, considering-'

'But you've met her, haven't you, couldn't you have asked?'

'Ask Leslie Moore? You'd have better luck asking that moon. One day you'll meet her, Tash, and you'll know what I mean.'

'I'd like that,' she says, happily. 'They live in Vancouver, don't they? _By the water..._ '

It's those last words that do it. Will's been lying next to her trying not think about her clinging wet dress, the sheen of her eyelids, the way she looks up at the stars expecting to see more than sky. If she asks him to make love to her this time he's not sure he has the will to say no.

He reaches for her and she moves towards him, hesitantly.

'I don't want to hurt you.'

'Bit late for that.'

He pulls her onto his good side and when that doesn't work, rolls her onto the long grass and touches his lips to hers. Their kisses are soft and closed mouthed and their fingers are tangled together. Dido has the sensation she is twelve again, sharing her first kiss with Walter Irving. She smiles and shivers at the feel of Will's mouth on her forehead, the shape of his words on her skin.

'I want to ask you something-'

'I know.'

'You do?'

'Will, this is Avonlea, do you think the Fletchers are just going to give you your grandmother's ring and not tell at least ten people? Don't be cross,' she says when he tries to pull away, 'I still wasn't sure you would ask, that is until you lead me here, because the water is _our_ place.' She kisses him again. 'No one can take that from us.'

A sound like a sigh and a groan comes from Will's throat.

'Why do I feel like you are about to say no-'

Dido leans on her elbow, her hand still in his.

'Not no. Just wait... Oh, please don't get up, please listen to me- there are things I need to do... before I can be your wife-'

'What things?'

'Papa wants me to go to France, they want me to do a screen test, can you imagine? _Me_ \- in a movie- like Lillian Gish-'

'So you're telling me you're going back to France.'

'I don't know, I really don't. Faith is trying to persuade me to go back to nursing, Mamma expects me to go to Redmond. None of these things mean I don't want to be married, I just don't want to be married _yet_.'

The moon has cloaked itself with the one cloud in the sky just as she needs to see his face. He hasn't moved and that feeling goes through her again, when she wishes she could breathe for him.

'Can you accept that?'

He should say yes, that one year, five years, thirty years are nothing if in the end she chooses him. And he wants to say it, even if he doesn't exactly mean it, because more than anything he wants to be that sort of man -the best sort of man, as his father would say- to let her go, and wish her well and believe she might come back to him. But the words won't come, they sit in his throat like a man trapped in smoking fuselage. He shakes his head trying to get them loose.

'Is that a no, are you telling me _no_?'

'No, I- no... that wasn't what I meant.' He feels socked by Dan Reese's fists all over again. 'You've had time... to think about what you were going to say, but this is all new to me. I- I've got this damn ring in my pocket... All through the wedding I was picturing our own- and now you tell me this.'

The knowing looks his cousins gave him; his father clapping him on the back; the secrets he told that weren't his to tell, and all the time she was going to say no. He's on his knees then he carefully stands up.

'I _knew_ you would do this, I knew you would try to get away from me-'

'I'm not the one going back to France-' he says, softly.

'You think _I'm_ the one running away- alright fine, let's see how you like it. Goodbye, Will Blythe.'

Dido leaves him at the pond. The burst of satisfaction she feels stops short when she cuts across the corn field at Orchard Slope and sees two figures walking toward her. One of them carries a lantern.

'Dodo, wait on, we're looking for Will and Dr Blythe!'

'Ma wants to head home,' Perry Fletcher hollers. 'The buggy's waiting!'

A Fletcher. Perfect. Dido crosses her arms and tucks her fingers close to her sides.

'You look like you've seen a ghost-' Jack says.

He bends down to catch his breath, passing the lantern to Perry who jogs up behind him.

'Where's the lucky boy?' Perry grins. 'Got something to tell us, _Miss_ Gardner?'

He peers past her -over her really, the boy must be seven foot tall- into the dark field beyond. Dido isn't sure what to do. She wants to say she doesn't know where his cousin is, and what's more she doesn't care; then she'll stroll off smartly with her chin jutting out and nary a tear to be seen. But she can't, it would be mean spirited not to point the boys in the right direction, especially when Will is hurt.

It's that last thought that causes her to wobble. Her big grey eyes make the merest gesture in the direction of the pond.

'The pond, Perry, you've got the lantern, why don't you head that way? I'll walk Dido home,' Jack says.

They head along the boundary fence. Jack doesn't touch her until they reach the ford that feeds into the field, then he takes her hand and helps her across. It's Dido that won't let go. She doesn't say a word and neither does he, when they reach Lone Willow her heart has almost resumed its natural beat.

She finds Rose and Jean asleep in her bed and goes up to the garret in search of a blanket. She might sleep out on the porch, even go as far as her Cherry Tree hut. She's not halfway up the attic ladder when Jack calls out her name.

'How did you know it was me?' she asks him.

The hem of her nightgown catches under her foot. There's a moment she thinks she might fall, then she catches herself.

'Because you climb ladders like you've never climbed a ladder before,' he says. 'Have you been kicked out of your room, too. I've got Minnie-May's boys in mine.'

He is still wearing the hideous checked trousers Delia made, and his hair still bears the teeth marks of his mother's furious comb. His vest would make that same woman cry. Being a Wright, Jack has a stash of food tucked up in a teatowel, and a gleaming drip of treacle decorates his chest.

Dido realises how hungry she is, and sits beside him on a winter weight quilt. Her mouth is crammed with cold strawberry pie when she finally says what she has been longing to tell him all night.

'It's was magical, Jack, just magical-'

'You must have heard how I fudged the middle bit? Even Una told me not to worry, which means it must have been bad.'

'I like those Merediths,' Dido says, brushing flakes of pastry from the well of white muslin between her chest and her knees. Her lips make a kissing sound as she catches a crumb on the end of her finger. 'They are, all of them, exceptional in their way.'

'Jerry was headed for glory, you know. He won prizes and scholarships just like your Ma. Then he went in for Officer training, busted his ankle and that was that.'

Dido sucks strawberry seeds from her teeth in as thoughtful manner as she can muster. She knows now what he means by 'that was that'. Disappointment. White feathers. A self induced exile.

Jerry gave up his post-graduate studies and took a position at what he called 'a poky schoolhouse that couldn't keep a teacher and couldn't keep a certain Cora Andrews in line.' It was a sad day for everyone when the Army Medics gave him the all clear. Delia gave Jerry pressed heads of lavender, and Jack gave him a promise to watch over his girls until he came back.

'To think he was destined for greatness and gave it all up.'

'I s'pose it depends on what you call great,' Jack mutters.

He had been resting his head on his hand but has slumped against the quilt. His eyes are closing and Dido lays her knitted blanket over his shoulder, smooths it down his hip.

I'll just lie here a minute, she tells herself, then I'll go downstairs, I'll go to the Cherry Tree hut, I'll go far, far away.

There is a tick, tick, tick on the tin roof as though it is slowly being prized open. The mooncloud covers the sky now and unburdens itself of rain.

I'll just wait for storm to pass, then go to the parlour or Mamma's bed...

She pulls Jack's arm around her. His body feels warm and solid, and his breath comes even and sweet on the back of her neck. Then the rain begins to fall as though it never means to stop. And Dido knows, she always knew, she's not going anywhere.

...


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter thirteen**_

 _ **August, 1919**_

After the rain the sky has the look of copper wiped clean.

'You could eat your dinner off it,' Rose says, nursing her cocoa on her knee.

She swings her little legs over the porch. Her bare feet graze over the flower beds below and she giggles, even when her cocoa drips onto her nightgown, because Mama isn't here to notice. Mama is on holiday for a whole week.

' _That's_ not Mama, is it?' says Jean, tilting her head to see through a row of tigerlillies that line the drive.

There is a moment when Rose thinks it might be and grasps the skirt of her nightgown to suck on the stain. Dido opens her eyes, she had been leaning on the porch post and frowns into the morning sun and looks to where Jean is pointing.

'That's _Mamma_ -'

'Aunt Anne? Where's she been so early in the morning?'

'She's wearing the same dress she was wearing last night. I remember because I thought it was black and Cora says you can't wear black to a wedding. It's bad luck,' Jean explains, as though bestowing rare wisdom. 'But it turns out it's a really, really, _really_ dark blue.'

'Her night without the stars dress-' Dido mutters, standing up.

'That sounds like even more bad luck-' says Rose.

Dido leaves the two girls to their 'Does not! Does too!' debate and walks briskly up the drive.

She meets her mother by an old well adorned with paper lanterns that the girls hung along its red shingle roof last night. Anne reaches for one and takes it down, as though her sole reason for being here in yesterday's dress at half past six in the morning is to retrieve it.

'Can you grab that one, darling?' Anne says, gesturing to the white globe near Dido's ear.

'Mamma, are you only now coming home?'

'Hmm? Mmm...' Anne murmurs.

She rests upon the edge of the well, the lantern pressed against her abdomen like a pregnant belly. A piece of mortar falls into the water and makes a soft plop.

'Mamma, where have you been?'

Anne's smile is tired but in her eyes are all the stars her dress could want for. She breathes deeply, shakes her head. There is a sprig of forget-me-nots in her hair where there used to be a rose. Anne pulls it out and twirls it, absently.

'Adventuring,' she says, her eyes never leaving the tiny blooms. 'Your mother used to be an adventurer, did you know that?'

'Mamma, you're worrying me-'

Anne tilts her head and considers her daughter. Dido thinks she looks like Rose when she is deciding which method of asking for another slice of cake will meet with the likeliest success.

'Come with me,' Anne says.

The flowers and lantern are put aside and she holds out her hand to her daughter.

'Come where? Mamma, you're not making any sense-'

'Just come.'

Her mother doesn't seem to have noticed that Dido is wearing a nightgown tucked into a pair of Jack's overalls. She needed these to milk a disgruntled cow that had been waiting almost forty minutes. Lone Willow has been slow to rise this morning. Except Jack, of course. Dido woke to find him gone. Well, if famous Mrs Gardner doesn't care that her daughter is dressed like a scarecrow, why should she?

'How far are we going?' Dido asks. She coils her braid into a knot the way Faith Meredith wears it, while Anne yawns.

'Not far.'

They link arms and pass Fred's saloon car parked under the willow tree. Anne cocks her head again, says hmmm again, Dido is about to shake her.

'Actually darling,' her mother says, 'what say we drive?'

Dido lays her hand on the bonnet of Uncle Fred's prize automobile. It is so highly polished that under the canopy of leaves it seems more green than black. She's dreamed of driving it, her father and Lester never let her near the Daimler. Jack is just as protective of his old truck. An eager, gleeful expression passes over Dido's face; the one she wears when Papa goes away on his 'expeditions' and the women of Alderley forgo the formal dining room and picnic in the garden -or if it is cool, the library, with the gramophone in place of birdsong.

'Are you serious, Mamma, do you think we could?'

Anne trots over to the passenger side door and scoots inside by way of an answer, cranking down the window and resting her elbow on it like Jack. Dido has them on the Newbridge Road before her mother can change her mind.

They head north, the light from the rising sun falling onto their laps like a great warm arm. When Anne has Dido take a right she asks her mother if they are headed to her beloved bit of old forest in Grafton, but all her mother will say is, 'In a way.'

She steers the car up an overgrown lane, the grass is so long Anne imagines it tickling the underside of the car as they pass over it. At the end is an old stone cottage. Really, it's ancient, perhaps one of the oldest homes on the Island. Buttery stonework winks under its coat of lush ivy; foxgloves and delphiniums grow up past the windows. There are roses in decadent droops of pink and white on either side of a stepping stone path. And the fragrance, it can only be seven, but the scent the sun has extracted from them is heady and wild.

Dido puts her nose to the dusty window pane and looks inside.

'Is this Echo Lodge?'

'Yes!' Anne says, clapping like a child. 'You remembered.'

She ducks past her daughter and opens the peeling front door. Dido is hit with a smell of smoke. Someone has recently tried to light a fire here with wet wood.

'You were here... last night?'

'Right again,' says Anne.

She collects two cups that are sitting in an odd shaped alcove in the middle of the wall and retreats to the kitchen. Dido is still surveying the room when she is drawn by the sound of the pump being worked on an old stone bench.

'This place is mediaeval.'

Anne wipes her hands on her dress and fold her arms, looking about her with a dreamy smile.

'I'm thinking of buying it,' she says.

There is such pure sounding pleasure in her voice Dido can't bear to question it. She finds it hard to remember the last time her mother bought anything. It's always Papa who decides how they landscape the garden, where they take their vacations, the type of car to buy. Even what they wear; her white silk dress now folded up in layers of tissue, torn and unwanted in her newly decorated dressing room.

'Good for you,' say Dido, generously, popping a kiss on her mother's pale brow. 'It looks like Mr Irving hasn't been here a while, knowing how he dotes on you I bet you get it for a song.'

Anne laughs, her bubbling brook-like laugh that she had before Dido went away.

'Not exactly -there's the matter of the 18 acres of forest behind the house -I'm buying that too... It was the only way to save it-' she adds, noting her daughter's face clouding over. 'I couldn't stand by and watch it be sold off in lots, let those ancient trees be pulled up and chopped down. I can't fix everything -but I must do this.'

'What about _my_ home?' Dido asks her. 'All the wallpaper in the world can't disguise it, Mamma, Alderley is falling to pieces.'

Her voice betrays an ever finer edge she is balancing on. If Anne has noticed she gives no sign and gazes out to garden view above the kitchen sink.

'Your father is taking care of that.'

'This is about the The Life Book, isn't it?'

Anne's eyes remain on the trees outside.

'How much do you know?'

'I know that _Papa_ wants me to come to France and that _you_ are planning on living here-'

The last part is an educated guess. Dido says it in order to hear it denied; to have her mother laugh that same bubbling laugh of before, and tell her what goose she is for even thinking such a thing. But it is the former remark that catches Anne off guard.

'Roy invited you- to France? What about _Will?_ '

'I don't need Will Blythe's permission, Mamma. This is 1919.'

Dido's body has gone rigid, her pointed chin rising higher by the second. A strand of black hair comes loose and she hitches it behind her ear. Her eyes are almost as dark. There is just the finest ring of grey; the amber bursts that suppound her pupils are almost eclipsed.

Anne knows this look. What she doesn't understand is why her daughter is directing it at her.

'Well, I- I did think you wanted to marry him?'

'No Mamma. _You_ wanted me to marry him.'

'What?' Anne utters.

She brings her hands in front of her, splaying her fingers like some sort of shield.

'I had no say in your courtship. You told me- in your letters- you said... you said you were in love with him-'

'Never once did I say that.'

Whatever defences Anne has are no match for this. She falls at the first word, sliding down the wall she has been backing into, wondering who the girl is. Only minutes ago they had sung The Barnyard Blues with the windows down as they careened up the red dirt roads. Only moments ago Dido had dropped an encouraging kiss on her mother's brow. Now she stands upon the flagstone floor and declares she doesn't love Will Blythe. It can't be true- when he gave her that ribbon- followed her to the Island- was going to propose- _everyone_ expected it...

A low strangled sound emerges from Anne's throat. She presses her hand over her mouth, not trusting herself to speak, because the feeling overwhelming her isn't shame for hoping Dido and Will could mend what she and Gilbert had broken, nor her disappointment in those hopes, but one of heart stopping relief. It's not until she remembers how to breathe that she can meet her daughter's eyes.

She lifts her arms once more, wanting to bridge the distance between them; the one they have been pretending not to feel.

'Darling girl- will you sit by your foolish Mama?'

Dido nods and moves silently to her side. No, not quite silently, a far away sound comes to the surface as her brittle facade breaks apart, then she touches against her mother and it all melts away. Her small dark head falls into her mother's lap and she weeps for those little girls losing their father, for Aunt Dorothy losing Uncle Max, for her half-brother, Florian, who was killed by Canadian soldiers at Vimy Ridge, for Merry-Hell and her surgeon, for Will who doesn't know what to do, for Jack who has too much to do, for her mother and father who never loved each other the way Fred and Diana do.

Then she cries for herself because she is a silly, spoiled brat who has been given everything and cannot seem to love.

'I want to love him, Mamma, I want to love him madly. Will saved me when I thought I would drown- I don't just mean in The Soup, I mean every single day. I don't know how to _be_ with him if my heart isn't beating a hundred miles an hour. But it's not anymore. I'm back on dry land and looking for reasons to need him the way he needs me -and I don't. Oh Mamma, I _hate_ myself...'

'I know you do, sweetheart... I wish I could take it from you- but you know that hate is only love-'

'That has lost its way,' Dido says, numbly. 'I'm afraid the maxims of Owen Ford can't help this time. Real life is much harder-'

Anne clutches her daughter to her breast, presses tiny kisses onto her head.

'Do you think of me as Owen Ford?'

'Sometimes...'

Dido frees herself from her mother's hold and looks at her, plainly.

'Sometimes you don't feel real. You never give into bitterness- are always ready with the perfect piece of wisdom... I know you are a wonderful writer and I know you've given so much to the world, it's only that-'

'You wish I could be more like Diana?'

Dido swallows hard in place of a nod, and Anne smooths away another tear.

'For a long time I thought I had to choose between being a writer and having a child. I took a chance because I knew the life Diana had would never be enough for me. We really aren't the least alike.'

She pauses, expecting her daughter to ask if there is anyone like Anne Gardner. And Dido does ask, just not in the way she is expecting.

'What made you stay out all night?'

'I could ask the same of you. It was me who tucked Jean and Rose into your bed. I expected you to sleep in mine, but you didn't know until this morning that I hadn't come home. So where were you?'

'Camping out with the best Island boy I know.'

Anne smiles and helps her daughter up.

'Sounds like something I would do. Come on, Uncle Fred has probably called the constabulary.'

When they stroll back to the car Anne places her hand over Dido's just as she is about to pull on the shiny chrome handle.

'You know, I've always wanted to drive... What do you think, Diana Dorothy, could you give your Mamma a lesson?'

Dido laughs. 'What _now_ -in this?' she says, excitedly, and jogs round to the passenger's side and bounces onto the seat. Her finger beckons from its warm leather depths. 'Come on, then!'

It's not like driving a buggy at all. For a start you need two hands to steer -it's as well she's as tall as she is, otherwise she'd never see over the top of the wheel. And there are pedals and gears to remember to pull on and press at the right time. But the noise! The engine sounds like Matthew trying not to laugh and then sniggering and wheezing behind his hankerchief. And the speed! Trees and picket fences go by with the deft blur of a brushstroke. A trip to Charlottetown would take less than two hours. Much less. It was possible, she could, she really could...

'Mamma! The gate!'

Anne overcorrects her steering, presses the clutch instead of the brake and collides into the well. The immaculate black bonnet crumples into the well wall. The shingle roof tips over and the last paper lantern touches down upon the car roof like a ball of fairy light. They couldn't know this, the women inside, yet how else to explain their appearances when a red faced Fred finds them rolling about on the seats, laughing and crying like something bewitched.

For the rest of the day and most of the night all he can manage is a shake of his head while he mutters, ' _Shirley_ girls.'

'You'd better put an offer on Echo Lodge,' Dido says to her mother as she brushes her auburn hair that night. 'I think we might have outstayed our welcome.'

...

 ** _* 'Hate is only love that's lost its way' from Anne of Windy Willows (Poplars)_**


	14. Chapter 14

**_Chapter fourteen_**

Dorothy Tremblay had been on the Island for three days before the serious questions were asked. Anne met her as per telegram instructions, on the last train to White Sands, and accompanied her to her favourite hotel at the end of the strand. Only the very rich could afford it, and only those with no pressing business remained. The summer season was drawing to a close but Mrs Tremblay's favourite maid agreed to stay on, though the cannery was hiring. She could earn more in tips from lovely Mrs T in a week than she could in a month shelling lobster, and sat happily in the dim kitchen listening out for the bell of the _Marco Polo_ suite while Anne and Dorothy took tea.

That evening they discussed Anne's looks: she had gained ten pounds and it suited her; Dorothy's looks: specifically her iron grey hair which she now wore in a bob; then poked over the remains of Dido and Will's affair.

Echo Lodge was never spoken of, even when Anne mentioned that Paul Irving had been looking for a pilot to take him round North Africa. Will had left for that interview two weeks ago with Dido's blessing, and was 'haunting the letter box' as her mother would say, waiting to hear that he and Paul had arrived in Morocco safely.

Gilbert had gone too, though Anne did not show the same generous encouragement. Nor did she feel a hideous pang of loss. As she stood on the platform at Bright River and waved his train away she had to admit to a delicious sense of self possession. She needed him gone because it had become impossible for her to think clearly with him here. All thoughts seemed to come back to him, which, while neither right nor sensible didn't stop it being true. As was the notion stuck in her chest that she would see him again.

Gilbert seemed to believe it as well because the last thing he said to her before waving goodbye was, 'Promise me you'll hold off on the new plumbing till the sale goes through. I know you, Anne!'

She watched the train round the bend and instead of heading to Lone Willow had driven the buggy to Echo Lodge and felt his presence in every room. There he was on the porch using his sleeve to catch a drop of rain that quivered on her jaw. And later on his knees before the fireplace breathing life into wet wood. And later still, on his back looking up at a ceiling blooming with damp and telling her about his daughter, Joy, and her mother, Leslie Moore.

Anne sipped at the tea she had made from mint leaves and smoky water and listened as he made a footnote from his brilliant career come alive. Against all medical advice Gilbert believed George Moore's brain damage could be reversed and convinced Leslie to let him have an operation. Its success filled every paper and most medical journals, and released Leslie from a life without hope.

In the afterglow of Gilbert's success and Leslie's freedom, Joy was made.

'I found out about her in a letter. A letter,' he said, not bitterly but with an incomprehension that had clearly not lessened though more than twenty years had passed. He put the mug to his lips and his breath came out as though fire was beginning to burn in him, too. 'I went back to the Glen, of course, and the look on her face when she opened the door, as if I intended to take Joy from her. I told her I wasn't there to break us apart but to keep us together. She simply said no, she'd been married to a ghost once before and couldn't endure tying herself to another.'

Gilbert never looked at Anne as he said this, and she never asked him to explain. She knew what he was telling her; that he had become a hollowed out version of himself in the years since they parted. Anne understood because the same thing had happened to her.

She lay back on the cold silk rug and watched the patches on the ceiling flicker as though they were clouds. Her hand reached for his and as the warmth from her body merged with his own, it carried a silent message:

 _I love you, I never stopped, I never shall..._

Anne was reliving that moment when Dorothy came to see her at Lone Willow the day after she arrived. She had taken the new omnibus that journeyed from White Sands to Avonlea at ten o'clock each morning.

'But I have to be at the milk stand by four,' she giggled, taking a city-girl's delight at these quaint Island ways, 'or they'll leave without me. So you must remind me, darling, or I'll end up having to hitch a lift on a hay wagon!'

Anne peeped out from behind a dripping sheet. Dorothy had a look on her face that said, well I thought it was funny.

'Sorry, dearest, it may have appeared as though I was out here pegging the clothes, but I'm afraid a good part of me was far, far away. What time did you say you had to leave? The Wrights have made such a feast in your honour, you'll need at least haf a day to get through it.'

That silvery Saturday passed in a blur of overladen plates and dogs winding about legs hoping for scraps, the violin wedged under Jack's chin, and a quiet cigarette on the porch. Mrs Wright had come at her guest with a saucer from her second best dinner service, then stayed to watch their namesake dance a waltz on the lawn with her barefoot mother.

Anne regretted her lack of footwear when they traipsed in a row to the milk stand. Red dust worked its way under her toenails and Cora took great pleasure in making Aunt Anne laugh as she placed a brick coloured foot onto her lap and gently blew all over it.

Dido's head was on Dorothy's shoulder, her hand in Diana's, as the latter peered up the road for any sign of the bus.

'I don't want to be called Dido anymore,' she announced.

'Whatever do you mean -whatever does she mean?' said Dorothy.

'Nor Tash or Dodo either,' she continued, lifting her head proudly. 'I want to be known by my real name. Diana.'

'But why?'

'I'll tell you why, Cora darling, because Diana is a great and wise hunter. Dido- well, she killed herself over some fellow when he went away-'

'Not in real life, those are just stories- none of it's true-' Cora was swiftly reminded by her grandmother. Still it made the young girl think.

'Then I don't want to be Cora anymore either. I want to be Cordelia, Cordelia is a grown up name.'

'Well, you've picked the perfect time to start anew, my sweet. Next month when you go to your new school be sure to introduce yourself as Cordelia, you'll find it will soon stick.'

Cora had her doubts, Rose and Jean would never make it as easy for her as that. All the same she reached up and kissed Aunt Anne's flushed cheek.

'To new beginnings!' Anne shouted into the heavy air of late afternoon.

Dorothy was the only one who didn't second the sentiment.

On the third day of her visit she and Anne meet in Charlottetown. They sit in the restaurant with smart silver coffee pots and potted palms. Dorothy presses her second cigarette into a cut glass dish and begins as though there had merely been a pause in conversation.

'So are you ready to stop this ridiculousness?' she says.

She is quite calm, there is even a hint of humour in her voice, one that Anne is quick to emulate.

'You'll have to be more specific, I think. My entire life has been one ridiculous episode after another.'

'I'm beginning to think you like it that way,' Dorothy says.

Her tone reveals a secret disdain for disorder and fancy, and Anne feels it keenly.

'This is not some whim, Dorothy. I'm buying Echo Lodge because I-'

' _You're_ buying? _You?_ And what does Royal say, I wonder?'

'No you don't,' Anne retorts. 'You know very well what he says, that's why you came. I love you, Dorothy, but if Roy thinks he can send you here to bring me home he is mistaken.'

Dorothy lights another cigarette and signals for a waiter to exchange her ashtray for a clean one. A plume of smoke erupts from her scarlet lips and Anne finds herself thinking of Gilbert again.

'Wake up, Anne. It's all very well running away to the Island and play Tess for the summer-'

'Bathsheba Everdene, actually-'

'Spare me, please-'

'I have spared you, but as you insist,' Anne cuts in, and lays out the facts, efficiently and without fuss, as though this was just another interview and her sister-in-law a journalist looking for a scoop.

By the time she is finished the cigarette has a good inch of ash on it and Dorothy's eyes are wide.

'You mean to tell me that you wrote-' she coughs, lowers her voice, ' _you_ wrote The Life Book? Why did you never say?'

'I didn't just lie to you, I lied to my daughter, to Marilla, to everyone I love because Roy instructed me to. And now on the strength of that lie he plans to take my book from me and sell it as his own, all for the sake of money-'

'Spoken like one who's never had to worry about where her next dollar is coming from.'

Anne's eyes feel hot and she stands abruptly.

'How little you know me,' she utters.

Dorothy is unmoved and gestures for Anne to return to her seat.

'You're going to want to hear this,' she says, with a coldness that reminds Anne of Aline.

Anne drops into her chair like a moody child, barely able to refrain from staring at the ceiling in a bored way, and forces herself to apologise.

'That was rude of me-'

'I blame the Island,' Dorothy says in an attempt at a joke.

Anne looks at her coolly and says nothing.

'It's time that I came clean, too, Anne dear. I didn't want it to have to come to this, really I didn't. I know my brother is vain and greedy, don't force him to become vicious as well.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You know very well a woman is not permitted to purchase a property without her husband's approval, the sale requires his signature-'

'That's where you are mistaken. Mr Irving has already sent me the paperwork, the chairman at Syracuse agreed to be my guarantor until the bank releases the funds.'

'Oh, Anne, you're so naïve, you think Roy hasn't been kept abreast of your machinations? He informed your publishers that he would manage the sale. In point of fact he has.'

Dorothy opens her green leather purse and extracts an envelope.

'What -what is that?' Anne says.

She inches away from it, feels her resolve inch from her body and seep out of her shoes.

'What has he done?'

'You don't have to open it. It's the deeds to that Lodge. Royal owns it.'

'No!'

'Hush now,' says Dorothy. 'He wants to give it to you, as a gift. He adores you, Anne, you must see that.'

'He takes everything from me that is mine-'

'What would you have without him? A middling career churning out children's stories that no one reads anymore.'

'I'd have the most important thing of all, I'd have myself-'

'That's all you'll have. Dido will never forgive you if you publically denounce Royal's claim to that book. Is that what you want, a sordid dispute playing out in the papers? Think of your daughter.'

'I am thinking of her.'

'Forget Royal's reputation, we all know a man may begin again as many times as life requires. But you. You write wholesome little tales for children. Do you think for one moment that anyone is going to buy the novels of a divorced woman? Syracuse will drop you in a second. And Dido- no family of any merit will let their son near her -here, darling, please, take this-'

Dorothy passes her handkerchief over the table and watches with pursed lips as Anne presses it against her welling eyes.

There had been a moment when she thought Anne would reject her appeals. Dido had been her last resort and going by the tears it had worked. But Anne isn't crying for her daughter's chance to become the wife of a Sorrel or a Dudley-Davidson. The families of merit she is thinking of are the Wrights and the Blythes. Would they accept her, love her daughter, if she knowingly brought disgrace upon them both? Besides Echo Lodge would have cost her every cent she earned from her Tree Folk books. Now she can go there every summer, live out her days in Alderley. She could restore it to its former glory, host fundraisers for war orphans, it was enough… More than enough.

She sniffs back her tears and discreetly blows her nose.

'Forgive me.'

Dorothy smiles at her tenderly.

'Go to the powder room and wash it all away, I'll order us a nice burgundy-'

'You can't -it's forbidden on the Island,' Anne says, hoarsely.

The words summon an unexpected memory. The taste of cherry floods her mouth; the smell of clipped grass and gingerale.

Dorothy laughs.

'Not if you have money, Anne. Everything has its price,' she says, lighting another cigarette.

Anne rises to her feet once more. She doesn't dash off to the pink door behind the palms but returns her chair to its place under the table. She longs to grip the back of it and have something to anchor herself to, and curls her hands into fists as though they clenched at the knife that was cutting her free.

'But not every _one_.'

She works her rings from her finger and positions them on the envelope.

'Tell your brother he may claim what he likes. He will never have me.'

She carefully slips her gloves on and walks slowly to the door. It's only when she almost steps in front of a car that Anne realises she hasn't the least idea how to get home. She was going to stay the night at Dorothy's hotel in White Sands. The only person she knows in Charlottetown that might be able to help her at eight o'clock on a Sunday night would be Delia's new sister-in-law, Faith.

After many false turns she finally finds the hospital. When she inquires if Faith Meredith is on duty the orderly asks her if she wouldn't rather see a doctor.

'Yes, I, no- just Faith, if she's here.'

The lad is about to direct her to the nurse's hostel, but that redheaded lady is looking so peaky she might not make it without keeling down the stairs. He takes her arm and guides through the bowels of the building. Anne hears a baby cry, and an old man, and the slip, slip, slip of nurse's shoes swishing down the corridors.

Faith is chuckling in a corner with her feet on a three-legged stool, and soon has Anne by the enamel stove, with a strong cup of tea in her hands.

'I don't make it as good as Rosemary,' she says, wishing her stepmother was here. Mrs Gardner looks almost frightened, yet all she will say is everything is fine.

'Well, not quite fine-' she admits after the second cup, 'I'm not sure how to get back to Avonlea. The train to Bright River isn't for another four hours and I'd still need a way to get to Lone Willow.'

'Leave it with me,' says Faith with the sort of assurance that makes Anne want to cry.

In twenty minutes the two of them are bouncing about in a rusted service lorry, and in little more than an hour she is home. Her daughter greets Faith like a sister and pulls her into the kitchen; Will Blythe's name is mentioned before the kettle has been brought to the boil.

Anne leaves them to it and goes out to where Diana Wright is waiting for her on the swing seat.

'Stroll or sit?' she asks her.

When Anne shakes her head _I don't know,_ Diana slips her shawl from around her shoulders and wraps it round her friend.

'Then we walk. We walk the way we always walk, until the words come.'

Tears fall first, the ones that have been biding behind Anne's eyes since that wretched moment in the restaurant, then the same words over and over.

'What have I done- what have I done-'

'If I know you, Anne, you did the only thing you could do. What I don't understand is why it's upset you so?'

They are sitting inside Fred's car under the willow, the bonnet is still a crumpled wreck.

'I will tell you, Di, only please don't interrupt. I say this because what you are about to hear will likely come as a shock-'

Anne looks over at her friend sitting comfortably on the passenger seat. The lights from the house catch her eyes and her teeth, which gleam between the plump lips of an encouraging smile.

How to tell Diana that she wrote The Life Book, that Roy is now saying it's his? That she told her husband she could never forgive him if he did such a thing, and that he did it anyway. That her publisher deceived her, told Royal everything. That Echo Lodge, her beloved Echo Lodge, now belongs to him. That she has nothing except the ever-decreasing royalties she receives from her children's books. That her reputation will soon be in ruins and her daughter may never forgive her. How can she tell this sweet, pure hearted woman these despicable things? And once she does will Diana reject her, attempt to change her mind…

'How can I look at you and say this?' Anne mutters.

'It's alright, Anne, I know.' Diana says. 'You love Gilbert Blythe, don't you?'

 **...**

 *** _Marco Polo is in reference to an infamous Island shipwreck_**

 ** _* The story of Leslie and George Moore is in Anne's House of Dreams_**

 ** _* Diana is a Roman goddess, Dido was Queen of Carthage (from Dido and Aeneas)_**

 ** _* Tess and Bathsheba are Thomas Hardy heroines_**

 **To Julie, I know you wanted Paul Irving here but introducing a new character at such a late stage seemed clunky. I am grateful for your suggestion however because this chapter needed an unexpected appearance by someone, a la Catherine de Bourgh ruining everything, and there was Dorothy just waiting for me to bring her back.**

 **To PelirrojaBiu, and to Formerly known as J, thanks for the nudges, I needed them :o)**


	15. Chapter 15

**With love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~everything is hers, only this idea is mine**

 **...**

 _ **Chapter fifteen**_

'Yes... yes I do,' Anne murmurs, unsure if the shock she feels is because Diana sees what this is really all about, or because she finally does.

Diana is equally stunned. She had been expecting to fight Anne on this point and doesn't know what to say. When she finally speaks it's only to ask how long Anne has loved him. Not because it matters, because it's the first sensible thing that comes into her head. Besides which, she's curious.

'I don't know, Diana. Forever? I don't- I can't answer-'

' _Forever_.'

'N-not the way I do now. I mean I did, after Convocation... You knew how miserable I was-'

'I thought that was due to Roy,' Diana cuts in, meaning Anne had let her believe it was Roy who had broken her heart.

'I know that you did, don't think I don't know. That was when it all began, when I learned to fold into myself. It hurt too much being open to the world, and I poured my heart into The Life Book because I wanted to believe I was still the kind of girl who could conjure a miracle from a disaster. No one wanted it, but what I told myself was that no one wanted me. I thought that belief had been banished when I came to Green Gables- but after Gilbert... when he almost died, I knew there could never be anyone for me but him-'

The reference to The Life Book goes unnoticed as Diana hastily inserts this revised Anne into her memories. An Anne who refused to speak of the Blythes, laughed off Diana's attempts at match making, put work above everything else. She remembers the letter Anne wrote announcing her sudden marriage to Roy; explaining that he was her ideal after all, for who else could tolerate a novelist for a wife?

It wasn't Anne marrying far from home in some castle in France that caused Diana to weep. It was the way she described her husband as tolerant, as though that was all she prized in him. Diana had filed away Anne's glowing book reviews, her snapshots of the Eiffel Tower and the Cote d'Azur, then looked at Fred snoring under a seed catalog. Yes, she felt envy, but it never lasted long. Not when there was love in her home and in her husband's eyes; when he pulled her into his arms and shyly asked if she was ready to try for baby number three.

After that Diana never saw Anne without Roy until this summer, when Gilbert came back to the Island.

'This is why you were so set on Echo Lodge, I suppose? Were you planning on hiding out there like Miss Lavendar, waiting for Gil to come back to you-'

'Hardly, Diana, I'm a married woman-' Anne says, attempting to glare and failing completely.

Diana's eyebrows disappear under a fringe of dark curls.

'But for how much longer?'

Anne wasn't able to answer that question for almost a year. Her daughter, Di, -Diana refused to stick- made a hash of her screen test in France. She blamed this on her father who insisted he wasn't flirting with the other girl up for the audition, though he managed to marry her anyway. The thought of watching her new stepmother redecorate Alderley took the shine off Redmond, and Di gave into Faith Meredith's urgings and enrolled at Charlottetown hospital to begin her training as a nurse.

She was keen to find a house for them to share. Papa suggested Echo Lodge, which remained empty since he bought it last year. Di laughed and told him on a very long collect-call that his suggestion like his purchase was a foolish one, and that he must 'live with his folly as with his crime.' And so he does, giving tedious lectures about a book he'd neither written nor understood, while he attempts to keep hold of yet another wife who doesn't want to be held onto.

His daughter Royal refuses to lose. He secures her the only way he knows how, by obtaining a house to keep her in. It's neat, clean, and close to the hospital, on a street with the wonderfully strange name of Rainbow Alley. Di and Faith walk through its crooked rooms with the proud eyes of new occupants, when Faith with her usual frankness announces she has something Di will want to know before they move in together.

'What's that then, do you sleepwalk, have fry ups at three in the morning, believe in ghosts? I've already boarded with my share of eccentrics so it will take quite a lot to scare me.'

'I hope this won't scare you. And if it does, Di darling, then I shall know how to reply.'

She takes a letter from the shapeless pocket of her favourite sweater. Di recognises the Algerian stamps immediately.

'From Will? So what, I know you two are writing to each other-'

'You don't know this.'

Faith smooths the thin page on her thigh, her gold-brown eyes fall to the last line and she clears her throat. Di has never known Faith to be this reticent. She has her roses on, as Una would say, glowing brightly on each cheek.

'P.S.' she begins, her voice thick with self consciousness. 'About the 'with love' I ended this letter with, I really mean far more than that. Something's happened to me, Faith, and to you, I think. But I don't want to know what it is unless you want to find out with me.'

Di goes white to Faith's red.

'Will wrote that. Will _Blythe?_ ' Faith nods. 'Well, I... well. He never wrote anything like that to me, he was always quoting someone else-'

Usually The Life Book, but Di has sworn to never mention the name of that troublesome book ever again. She walks over to a diamond shaped window at the bottom of the stairs and peers out the way her mother does.

'I'll shall always love him, you know. I don't think I could stand it if he settled for just anyone. I've seen what can happen when people settle. It may seem the easy option, Faith -but the mess it makes... Will makes messes- and I think you are the only one who knows how to clean them up. I- I can't think of two people more perfect for each other.'

Faith joins her at the window, wrapping her lean arms around her friend and resting her chin on her shoulder.

'I agree with everything you say -except the bit about cleaning up his messes, those he will have to make good himself. But I want to be there when he does, I so dearly want to be with him, I- I-'

Di turns and places a finger on Faith's lips.

'Don't let me be the first to hear it,' she says.

Her cheeks are beginning to ache from all this smiling. It's not that she's not happy for Faith, she is, but she is other things as well. Things that perhaps only Jack will understand. She swallows down the hard little pain and brings out a letter of her own.

'Now it's my turn for some news. I've found someone for the third room. Mamma's chum, Phil Blake, has a daughter, just returned from Mission work out west. She was going to go to Newfoundland but I've convinced her to try this Island. You'll adore her, Faith, she is named after Mamma but everyone calls her Nan...'

It is Nan who stands on the windy platform at Charlottetown station waiting to collect two doctors who have come to take over the practice in Glen St Mary. She has lived in the bustling harbour town since Di left nursing to pursue yet another scheme. With its emerald valley, darling lighthouse, tattooed sailors and motherless brats, Nan knew she had found her home. A place she might live, serve, and not cause her mother to go white with worry.

She smooths down her starched apron and practises a smile as the train spits steam on her boots. The older doctor she has met before, but what to say to his daughter?

The three of them jostle shoulder to shoulder in the front seat. Gilbert insists on driving Nan's car and the two women chat easily along the forty mile drive to the Glen. Joy is married to another doctor, an Australian lepidopterist, who lost a leg at Gallipoli.

'We don't have children,' she says, 'we have butterflies and moths. My chief concern is this Ingleside we're moving into. Dad swears James will manage the wheelchair fine, but I won't feel easy until I've seen the place.'

'Houses can be fixed, Joy. It's the highminded pronouncements of McAllisters and Elliots you should worry about.'

Joy clutches Nan's arm in mock terror.

'You'll help me win them over, won't you?' she says, as Gilbert turns into the drive.

'I'll leave you to explore,' he says, tossing Joy the key to the house. 'Think I'll stretch my legs. Try not to turn half the town against us while I'm away.'

The smile on his face is not the long wearing kind and before Gilbert has walked the length of Glen Road and rounded the corner of Carter Flagg's store he wonders if he should turn back. It's unlikely Joy will have ten minutes to admire the huge pantry and the wide veranda before neighbours bearing tarts and tart opinions come knocking on the Ingleside door.

He pictures the looks on their faces when his daughter informs them she is not the wife of the doctor, she _is_ the doctor. Well, one of them. Gilbert too, has given up his position in Boston to help Joy build her practice. It's Leslie who will now make the twice yearly visits, though she did wonder why of all the places in the world her daughter chose the Island.

Joy's answer was one her father might give.

'Because I belong there,' she said.

Gilbert can hardly say this to Anne when she asks him why he is here. He is still thinking up an answer when he closes a gate nestled between two pines and strides up the path to a small white house.

Anne moved to Four Winds in the new year because she needed a place to write that was cheap, quiet and beautiful. Gilbert had suggested she get in touch with Leslie, who had once run a boarding house near Four Winds Point. It was a thin reason, done because he knew how much Anne needed someone like Leslie; a woman who had stood her ground, flouted convention, and thrived regardless. Now Anne is doing the same. She found new publishers, who offered her a generous advance to write something daring and new for this daring new world they were living in.

The Glen considers her quite the virago and Anne does her best to live up to her reputation. She usually wears loose shift dresses, brightly coloured kimonos and wide silk scarves, but today she is kitted out in a pair of Di's old corderoy trousers and a soft white chemise. The day is hot for early October and she has a lot of work to do, she doesn't even put the paint brush down when she answers the door.

Gilbert too is feeling warm. He is has rolled his tie into his pocket and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. His jacket is slung over his shoulder and it falls on the front step when he sees her.

'Your jacket,' she says.

'Your brush,' he replies, when it lands wetly on the floor.

'Your face,' she murmurs, drawing a paint spattered finger down the deep line in his cheek.

'Your... you,' Gilbert says, kissing her.

It all takes a deliciously long time. Anne's hand is in his and she attempts to undress him and herself without either of them letting go. Afterwards, when their old bones feel too uncomfortable on the floor and they scurry up to the bedroom, their hands are still locked together.

Anne sleeps in the smallest room, her bed takes up most of the space and is jammed under the window. She lifts her leg and attempts to pull the thick red curtain with her toes. Gilbert brings his hand to her foot, slides it down her calf, her thigh, and rests it on her hip. Anne's hands go to her belly which bear stretch marks the colour of moonstone.

'Don't. I want to see you.'

He pulls her fingers away, kisses the pale striations tenderly, and then covers her with his body. When he tells her he can't get enough of her it almost sounds like a growl.

This time it is panicked, urgent and over so quickly Gilbert chuckles with self deprecation.

'That was the young me, I'm afraid,' he says, panting against her damp neck.

'Well then,' Anne says, lifting his face to meet her own, 'it's fortunate I'm in love with the old you. Happy birthday, Gil.'

'That's not for two weeks-'

'I mean now, this... the birthday of our happiness.'

Gilbert huffs red hair away from his nose as her head rests on his heart. They talk for a few minutes, both aware that the world outside this bedroom will claim them at any moment. It's not until Gilbert begins buttoning up his shirt that it occurs to him he never mentioned his plans to stay. Anne listens, raptly, and places a coffee on the small table next to a lamp. Over the glass shade hangs a heart shaped pendant. It swings almost joyfully when Gilbert reaches for his cup.

Anne wore her pink heart the day they married at the Four Winds lighthouse and has never taken it off. Her grandchildren reach for it, greedily, as though it was a piece of candy. Di's daughter, Daisy, chipped her first tooth on it. Will's son, John, prefers to nestle into Gran's lap and rub it between his chubby brown fingers.

'You want to be careful,' says Jean, she has come to the Glen for the weekend before heading back to Queens. 'The enamel will wear off. You should keep it tucked away or you'll have to get a another.'

Anne recalls the first time she took the pendant from its box; imagines the life she might have led if she had gone to Gilbert all those years ago and told him that she loved him.

There would have been no curling up and pulling away, no deceit and no settling. There would have been no Will to rescue those men in No Man's Land, no Di to found a Soldier's Retreat at Echo Lodge. No unexpected happiness for Katherine, no life-saving discoveries by Gilbert. No Life Book for people all over the world to love and to argue over...

Oh, there would have been another life and it would have been good and simple, remained shiny and new. But it was damage that made life extraordinary.

'I don't want another,' Anne says, watching Gilbert lift Una's son onto his shoulders. 'I want just what I have right now.'

 **...**

 ** _* 'There could never be anyone for me but you' and 'the birthday of our happiness' are from the last chapter of_ _Anne of the Island._ **

**_* Gallipoli campaign was in Turkey, 1915_**

 **There we are, all done! I don't know what I wanted to prove by writing this story, I was working it out just as you were. But I think what mattered most was that I didn't make their lives worse, just different. Cohen's famous line,**

 **'There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in'**

 **was clearly ringing in my ears as I finished this chapter, and I think that's the best way to see the world.**

 **Thanks especially to the old friends and new faces who left me long questioning reviews and gave this story a chance. If you liked it please read The Enamel Heart by Bright River, which is the story that inspired it all in the first place. If you didn't like how I ended this then let me know, loose ends are infuriating!**

 **There are two more stories I still want to write. I have to finish off the Letters series and I am also going to write a modern day version of Anne which will either be set in Australia or New Zealand. Not sure which one will come first, but I would love to know your preference.**

 **k.**


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